Executive Session

Floor Speech

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Mr. LANKFORD. Mr. President, I thank Chairman Isakson for the work he has done on this important issue. It has been a long road to work through reforming the VA. The VA is exceptionally complicated. There are a lot of interests engaged with this. He has heard a lot of voices from all over the country and all over this town in order to help resolve some of the issues and bring them together.

This is exceptionally important, though, for our veterans--especially for our veterans who live in rural areas that are very far from healthcare.

Section 101 of this bill requires the VA to give access to community care when a veteran's referring clinician agrees that furnishing care or services in the community would be in the best interest of the veteran after considering certain criteria--and this is very important--things such as the distance they have to travel; the nature of the care that is required; the frequency of the care, so they don't have to travel back and forth, often for long distances; the timeliness of available appointments; whether the covered veteran faces an unusual or excessive burden. It includes the family and the veteran. So in the conversation that is happening, it is not just a clinician making a decision; the veterans are at the table, and their family is brought into consideration.

This is important not just for so many veterans who have to travel long distances; it is important for veterans who live close. The chairman and I have spoken on this briefly before.

I have a veteran in my State who was at the Muskogee facility and who was getting great care. I stopped by to visit veterans in the Muskogee facility and went room to room visiting with people, checking on them and their care. I asked how he was doing, and he said he had great nurses and great doctors and has really done well.

My next question: Is this the first time you have been in this facility?

He said: Well, no--kind of. I had cancer treatment a couple of years ago. But they couldn't do it here in my town; they sent me to Seattle to get my cancer treatments.

I said: Did your family get to go?

He said: No, sir. They couldn't go.

So that was the best facility.

He said: I got good care there, but I went a long way and spent months and months away from my family getting chemo, radiation, surgery, and then followup.

He would have loved to have done that at any number of cancer facilities in Oklahoma. In fact, in Oklahoma City, there is a National Cancer Institute--one of top 2 percent of all the cancer hospitals in the country is right down the road.

The question is, Once this bill passes, in future situations where veterans are facing great need for specialties--like cancer and other issues--will this be a situation where veterans will continue to be sent across the country, away from their families, for care because that is easiest on the VA, or will their family members and the frequency of visits be brought to bear in that so they will be able to make the decision that maybe they can get that great care locally?

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Mr. LANKFORD. Anywhere else. I thank the chairman for that clarification. We look forward to doing what is in the best interest of the veteran and the veteran's care--not necessarily what is the simplest thing for the VA but what is in the best interest of that veteran and their family.

I appreciate all the great folks at the VA who serve our veterans so faithfully every day and will continue to be able to give them what they need to do that but also help our veterans know that they are going to be taken care of in the best possible way.

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