Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. VARGAS. Today, I rise in support of the efforts to address the increasing backlog of veterans disability claims in the FY 2014 Military Construction and Veterans Affairs appropriations bill. We must do everything in our power to ensure that the men and women who have served honorably in the armed services receive the full benefits they have earned protecting our Nation and our freedoms abroad. It is a shame that our veterans have to wait an average of 321 days to receive a response from the Department of Veterans Affairs after filing a claim.

In my district, I have the privilege of representing the southern portion of San Diego County and all of Imperial County in California. San Diego is the home to the third-largest veteran resident population in the Nation. Current processing times have tripled in the area since 2009, with over 28,500 pending disability claims being processed and an average wait time of 334 days.

As we continue to wind down our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, more and more men and women will be seeking the benefits they are owed. We must continue to find workable solutions for these heroes and their families. This bill presented today provides more than $290 million to help the VA meet its goal of ending its disability claim backlog by 2015. In order to meet this deadline, funds will be provided for the digital scanning of health and benefit files and for the development of a paperless process claim system. Additionally, $344 million will be appropriated to the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs to implement a single, integrated health record system used by both Departments. Both of these measures are needed to speed up the processing and to modernize our record-keeping system.

We must also hold the VA accountable for its results, and I am glad to see that the monthly reporting requirements on the process of the expedited claims initiative for veterans is included in this bill.

During the final throes of the Civil War, President Lincoln affirmed the government's obligation to care for those injured during the war and to provide for the families of those who perished on the battlefield. With the commitment ``to care for him, who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan,'' President Lincoln laid the foundation for our moral responsibility to our Nation's veterans. Let's continue to work in this tradition by reducing the backlog and the wait times of disability claims for the veterans and their families across our Nation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source