Veterans Health Care

Floor Speech

Mr. MORAN. Mr. President, there has been a lot of conversation among many of us here in the Senate and last week in the Veterans' Affairs Committee about the circumstances we find ourselves in at the Department of Veterans Affairs and its ability to provide the necessary care and benefits for our military men and women who have become and are becoming veterans.

What we heard last week at the Veterans' Affairs Committee was very disturbing to me because it still appears that the Department of Veterans Affairs has no plan to solve circumstances our veterans find themselves in. Who in this country would we expect to have access in the most timely fashion to the highest quality of care other than those who served our country and who were promised that? A commitment was made to them to make certain that those benefits would be made available. They were told that would be the case.

I went home this weekend. Part of our job is to help people. Every week at the end of the week I get what is called a weekly State report. I and other members of the Senate have staff who spend significant amounts of time trying to solve people's problems with government. We call it case work.

Every week I get a report of people who called my office to tell me something they want me to know, people who contacted me asking for help with a variety of federal agencies. But it struck me as so evident in reading my report from my State staff about the circumstances that our veterans find themselves in. So every week there is a report that I read generally at the end of the week, on the weekend. It is really page after page of things that have happened involving me and my staff and our relationship with Kansans who have a story to tell, who have a concern to raise, who have a request for how I vote. This week's staff report I thought I would highlight for my colleagues. My guess is that the circumstances that Kansan veterans find themselves in is probably no different for me than it is for my other colleagues here in the Senate.

These are just reports from Kansans who called or stopped by my office or wrote to us this week at home looking for help, asking me to help them solve their problem and telling a story about their relationship with the Department of Veterans Affairs.

A veteran from Hutchinson, KS, called to tell us that he filed a claim with the VA. It has been filed for 6 months, and he is still awaiting a decision. Unfortunately, that is all too common. A veteran from Norton, KS, filed a claim for service due to Agent Orange. He has been diagnosed with cancer and is seeking treatment through the VA. He has been informed that it could take 7 to 8 months before the VA will examine his claim, and while his cancer is not curable, it is treatable. And yet he has a 7- to 8 month waiting period before he can receive benefits.

A veteran from Salina, KS, in the central part of our State indicates that he received double vaccinations before he was deployed to Desert Storm due to the fact that his predeployment package had been lost. He indicates he now suffers from several health conditions as a result and has been informed that the VA denies his benefits.

A veteran from Hutchinson, north of Wichita, indicated he has been fighting with the VA for 7 years on appeal. He has something pending with VA. They provided him an answer that was unsatisfactory, and he is appealing that decision. He claims the VA has continued dragging out his appeal process, and he has difficulty finding updates on his appeal when he contacts the VA. That is an example of someone who called the office and asked for help.

A veteran from Wichita said his doctors discovered a mass on his brain, and it will require an MRI to determine what the mass is. The earliest appointment available for him is on June 30. He, of course, as all of us would be, is concerned over that long wait. This is a veteran who has been diagnosed with a mass on his brain, doesn't know what it is, needs an MRI--exactly what a doctor would order to get additional diagnostic information--and cannot get the MRI until June 30.

A veteran from Junction City--which is a community that is adjacent to Fort Riley where a significant number of veterans and military retirees reside--indicates that he is living in a nursing home. He is 100-percent service connected with a disability and the VA is currently paying for his nursing home services. He has recently been informed that his physical therapy will no longer be covered by the VA and they are discontinuing payment but offer no explanation as to why. He filed an appeal late last year and has not received a response or status update from the VA since that request.

A veteran from Lawrence has had an appeal pending with the VA for over 1 1/2 years and wants our help because he has received no communication from the VA in more than a year.

A veteran from Overland Park, KS--a suburb of Kansas City--is the primary caregiver for his wife who suffers from Alzheimer's. He has had tremendous difficulty in working with the VA to schedule appointments when he can be away from her to receive his treatments from the VA.

A daughter of a veteran from Wichita who passed away in the Wichita VA is concerned about the events that took place while he was in the care of the VA.

A veteran who lives north of Bird City, KS, is a category 1 disabled marine veteran due to a service-connected disability. He indicates that he has had two heart attacks and is now paying for stress tests and his own medical bills out of pocket because the VA has denied him fee basis. What that means is if you are a veteran in Bird City, KS, which is the very northwest corner of our State, access to a VA hospital is a long way away, and that fee basis allows the veteran to receive care and treatment from a doctor and hospital closer to their hometown or neighborhood.

My point is that the people who are most deserving of care and attention are not receiving the care and attention they need. The Department of Veterans Affairs is supposed to provide the services and benefits earned and promised to those veterans. This is not anything that is out of the ordinary.

This report is something I read every week, and the reports that I convey to my colleagues here on the floor of the Senate are not unusual. I suppose what is unusual is that the number is increasing. What used to be a shorter list of problems with the VA has grown over time to be a longer and longer list.

I have been asking for a plan by the Department of Veterans Affairs from its top leadership, Secretary Shinseki, to explain to me, the Senate, the American people, and veterans what the Department of Veterans Affairs is going to do to meet the needs of these and other veterans across our country.

As I have indicated on the Senate floor before on this topic, if we are incapable of caring for our veterans today, how are we going to be capable of taking care of veterans in the future as more and more military men and women return from our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? The physical and mental circumstances those veterans will find themselves in will be even more difficult and challenging.

We have an aging veteran population from World War II and now Vietnam veterans will most likely be needing more care and treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs. What we need is the leadership that is necessary to meet the needs of these veterans and a commitment that the status quo is unacceptable and that the bureaucratic culture at the Department of Veterans Affairs is not something that is going to remain. There is going to be a concerted effort to make certain that the Department meets the needs of those who served and sacrificed for our country.

Again, who, other than those who served our country, would we expect to be at the top of the list to receive the most timely and highest quality of care than those who served our Nation? It seems to me that as these issues are raised, we have a Department of Veterans Affairs that is doing damage control. What we need is a Department of Veterans Affairs that reduces the damage being done to the veterans--the men and women who served our country--in Kansas and across our Nation.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

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