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Floor Speech

The Department of Veterans Affairs does need reform. The status quo is not acceptable. We need to make certain that every veteran, every member of our military who is now a veteran and seeks services in the Department of Veterans Affairs, that their needs are met.

It has been a longtime goal of mine to make certain that the promises that were made to those who served are promises that are kept. We know things aren't as they should be at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

All of us in this Senate have staff members who work on cases--what we call casework--to try to solve the challenges that a veteran meets in dealing with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

We all walk the streets of our home States. We have meetings and have conversations with those. And, often, it is a veteran who comes to tell us the story of what help they still need.

While I continue to believe that nearly everyone--most who work at the Department of Veterans Affairs, many of whom are veterans themselves, are working diligently to make sure their colleagues-- veterans they shared that service with--are treated in a fashion that provides them with the best quality care and provides them with the benefits they have earned. Yet we know the system is still far from being able to accomplish that goal.

In fact, the Department of Veterans Affairs--so many times, we have reports from the inspector general, who outlined dramatic changes that need to be made and outlined instances in which the Department of Veterans Affairs has failed in significant ways in meeting the needs of those who served our Nation.

We have about 150-, 200,000 veterans in Kansas. They are a significant component of the nature of our State. They are respected and admired by their fellow Kansans. It is important for us to make sure that the Department of Veterans Affairs is living up to its commitment. It is our job as Senators and it is our job as members of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs to do those things.

The Senator from Connecticut is right. We have provided the tools to the Department, new opportunities for veterans to be better served and served in more ways--combating suicide; making sure that mental health services are more readily available; providing services through telemedicine; and most recently--well, almost most recently--the PACT Act, which provided new and additional benefits, both healthcare and financial, to those who served in Southeast Asia and served in Iraq and Afghanistan in regard to toxic exposure; and even more recently than that, care for and support for caregivers, those who serve their loved ones, family members who help veterans throughout the day in their circumstances--the Elizabeth Dole Act.

So we are actively engaged in trying to make certain and hopefully making progress in making certain that more veterans receive better care at every opportunity. But the VA still needs a serious and thorough evaluation, and a component of that is workforce.

My goal is to make certain that the Department of Veterans Affairs evaluates how many people it needs to meet its mission and then adjusts accordingly, whether that is more or less, but to right-size the VA to make certain that those veterans who are in need of care, who deserve their benefits, are well cared for and receive the care and compassion they deserve.

So I am going to offer a resolution myself, and in order to get to that point, I need to object to the Senator from Connecticut's resolution--his unanimous consent request.

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