Bipartisan Sportsmen's Act of 2014 - Motion to Proceed - Continued

Floor Speech

Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, I wanted to say a few words about the conference committee in terms of legislation protecting the health of our veterans. We are working hard on it in the Senate, the House is working hard on it, and our staffs have been meeting. I have been in touch often with Chairman Miller in the House. We had, I thought, a very productive conference committee before we left.

As we continue to proceed, if there is anything I have learned since I have been chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, it is that I think as a people, as a nation, we underestimate the cost of war, and before anyone votes to go to war again I think they should fully appreciate the repercussions of that vote.

What going to war means is not--as in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq--losing some 6,700 brave men and women. That is a terrible loss, but I also want people to remember the families, the wives, the kids, the mothers, and the impact that loss has had on their lives and the need for us to protect those wives and those children to make sure they can have the quality of life they are entitled to despite their loss.

But it is not only loss of life. We have had in this war a horrendous epidemic of men and women coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder. I am not sure of exactly the number, but it could be as high as 500,000 men and women coming home from war with PTSD and that is a very difficult illness which needs a lot of care and that illness, again, impacts the entire family--wives, kids. It impacts the ability of a worker to go out and get a job to earn an income. That is a cost of war.

Needless to say, the cost of war is the many who came home without legs, who came home without arms, who came home without eyesight. The cost of war is a high divorce rate for folks who come home who cannot readjust well into their family life. The cost of war is an extremely high rate of suicides. The cost of war is widows who are now having to rebuild their lives. And on and on it goes. The bottom line is the cost of war is enormous in terms of human suffering and the impact on not only the individual who fought in that war but on the entire family.

As I think our colleagues know, several weeks ago Senator McCain and I put together a proposal to deal with the current crisis at the VA, and I am very proud that legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 93 to 3.

What are we dealing with? What is the cost of this proposal? This is an expensive proposal because the cost of war is expensive. What a VA audit told us is that more than 57,000 veterans are waiting to be scheduled for medical appointments. These are the folks who are on these waiting lists, some of which were secret, some of which had data manipulated. These are folks who should have been getting into the VA for timely health care but who were not. On top of that, there is an unknown number of veterans who are on no lists because of poor work being done at the VA. They were not on any list. How many there are we don't know, but many of those people need to be seen.

So what our legislation does is say we are going to make certain that all of these veterans who are waiting for health care--who have waited far too long for health care--will, in fact, get health care as soon as they possibly can, and they will get that health care either through private physicians, they will get that health care in community health centers, they will get that health care at the Department of Defense military bases, they will get that health care at the Indian Health Service, but they will get that health care in a timely manner, and that is going to be an expensive proposition. We cannot provide health care to tens and tens of thousands of veterans in a short period of time outside of the VA without spending a substantial sum of money.

No. 2, long-term, what is clear to me and I think to anybody who has studied the issue is that if we are serious about eliminating these waiting lists and getting people into the VA in a timely manner, we have to make sure that at every facility in this country the VA has the requisite number of doctors, nurses, and other types of personnel they need in order to accommodate the growing numbers of people who are coming into the VA.

If we are talking about hiring thousands of doctors in a moment, by the way, where we have a very serious doctor shortage in this country, that is going to be an expensive proposition, as well as hiring the nurses and other personnel and building or leasing the space we need. That is issue No. 2. That is going to be expensive, but long term, if we are serious about keeping our commitment to the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend this country, that is exactly what we have to do.

The third area in this legislation which is going to be expensive is we have now for the first time said to veterans that if they are living a distance away from a VA facility, more than 40 miles, they are going to be able to go to a private doctor. That will cost us some money as well.

Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator from Vermont yield for a question through the Chair?

Mr. SANDERS. I am happy to yield the floor to the Senator from Illinois.

Mr. DURBIN. I don't ask the Senator to yield the floor, but I would, through the Chair, address the Senator from Vermont.

First, I thank the Senator for his bipartisan effort with Senator John McCain which led to an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote on the floor of the Senate to address what we consider to be a crisis in the Veterans' Administration. Press reports have suggested in the most extreme situation that some veterans' lives were being compromised because of the failure of providing timely care to these veterans. It resulted in an investigation of VA facilities all across the United States. It resulted in the resignation of the Secretary of the Veterans' Administration and promises for dramatic reform, but I have to say to the Senator from Vermont what he has accomplished with Senator McCain is tangible.

I would like to ask him two or three questions about the current state of affairs. How long ago was it that we passed on the floor of the Senate this bipartisan measure?

Secondly, did this measure involve emergency spending to deal with the emergency in the Veterans' Administration?

Third, did the House version of their VA reform include the resources the Senator from Vermont mentioned, the new doctors, the new nurses, the new facilities to accommodate this wave of veterans. Those are the three questions that I think are critical.

I close by saying thank you again and again, because as chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, the Senator has reminded us of the real cost of war.

There are many people who vote quickly to go to war who will not vote quickly to pay for the care we promised our veterans when they come home. Thank you for caring.

Mr. SANDERS. I very much thank the Senator. Let me answer the very last question first, and I will go through the others.

I think throughout the history of this country, not only in Iraq and Afghanistan, I think as a people we have underestimated the real cost of war. There was no word called PTSD at the end of World War II, but anyone who thinks that men and women did not come home from war suffering from that ailment would be very mistaken. So the cost of war is real, and it is not just missiles and tanks and guns. If this country means anything, we take care of all of those who serve, to the last day of their lives, when they need that care. I don't have the date in front of me, but I think it was about 3 weeks ago when we passed that legislation by a huge vote. I think there were only 3 people who voted against it. It was a vote of 93 to 3--huge bipartisan support for the bill.

But equally important, to answer the important question raised by the Senator from Illinois, there was also an overwhelming understanding that paying for this bill is a cost of war. It has to be emergency funded, and in a strong bipartisan vote the Senate said, yes, that is how we are going to pay for it.

In terms of the House bill, the House bill was a reasonable bill, but they did not go into the detail we did in terms of how it will be paid. But the major point I do want to make--I was just going to get to that and I appreciate the Senator from Illinois raising it. This bill is not going to be paid for by cutting education or food stamps. That isn't going to happen. That isn't going to happen, first of all, because it is not going to happen and, second of all, it would be grossly disrespectful to the veterans of this country. The veterans of this country need help. They need help now. This legislation must be passed as soon as possible, and it must be passed in terms of the emergency funding. This is a cost of war.

I would ask my friend from Illinois, the whip, can he recall what kind of programs were offset and what kind of taxes were raised to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Mr. DURBIN. Through the Chair, I would answer the Senator, without asking him to yield the floor, and say this: When we decided to embark on the invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan, it was with at least the understanding of then-President Bush that these would be costs that would be added to the deficit of the United States. We would not be paying as we fought. We would be waging a war, spending the money necessary to wage it successfully, and we would deal with the cost of it at a later moment in time. Many of us, even those of us who voted against the invasion of Iraq--and I was 1 of 23 on the floor of the Senate voting against it--voted for the resources to wage the war, saying if our men and women in uniform are risking their lives, we will stand by them, equip them, and bring them home safely. I also believed and understood that I had an obligation to every one of those men and women in uniform, having promised them that if they would risk their lives for America and come home needing our help, whether it is health care or education or the basics of life, we would be there.

I say to the Senator from Vermont thank you for reminding us of the pledge made by America to these veterans and I believe the pledge made by Republicans and Democrats in Congress to stand by them when they came home.

Mr. SANDERS. The Senator is exactly right. While no one is quite exactly clear how much those two wars will end up costing us, the estimate is between $3 and $6 trillion. The point Senator Durbin made is even those who voted against the war--and I did as well--understood that when we sent men and women off to battle they would have to have all of the resources they needed to do their mission. Equally important, what we are saying now is when they come home wounded in body, wounded in spirit, we need them to have the resources they require to make their lives whole again. That is a moral obligation.

I thank the Senator for raising that point.

I will yield the floor in a second, but first I will conclude by saying that I want to see this bill passed as soon as possible. We are working as hard as we possibly can, but anyone who magically thinks the only problem facing the VA is more accountability and better management is not correct. We do need better management at the VA, we do need more accountability at the VA, and this legislation will provide that.

People who are incompetent and people who are dishonest should be fired. There must be more transparency, and there certainly must be a much clearer chain of command that goes from Washington to regional hospitals and facilities and back up again.

At the end of the day, the best management in the world is not going to provide the quality and timely health care veterans need unless we have the doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel, and that is the simple fact. Excellent management, yes; transparency, yes; fire incompetent people, yes; but we also need the doctors and nurses to provide quality and timely care to the veterans of our country.

With that, I yield the floor

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