[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 30 (Wednesday, March 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H997-H998]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             VETERANS HOSPITALS STRUGGLING TO MEET DEMANDS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, the men and women of the Armed Forces serve 
this country honorably. They put their lives on the line in order to 
protect our freedom and our values. We owe them our gratitude, and they 
deserve to be recognized and fairly compensated for their service.

[[Page H998]]

                              {time}  2045

  They also deserve to receive the benefits and the health care that 
they need and have earned.
  We are all aware of the crisis facing VA health care. Veterans are 
waiting unconscionable lengths of time for appointments. The 
President's now out-of-date Web site claims his fiscal year 2004 
budget, the year we are in, which Congress increased by $1.3 billion 
last year, would enable the VA to eliminate the waiting lists by the 
summer of 2004, this summer. Well, that is not the truth. That is not 
going to happen. Instead, VA hospitals are struggling to meet 
increasing demand; and year after year, my colleagues and I have to 
fight to increase the underfunded VA budget.
  Veterans in rural States, such as Maine, face all of these problems, 
amplified by the fact that they may have to travel hundreds of miles to 
the nearest VA health facility.
  Maine's single VA hospital, Togus, is located 100 miles from our 
southern border and 300 miles from our northern border. As anyone 
familiar with the cold and snowy winters will tell you, those kinds of 
distances are difficult, not to mention dangerous, to travel in the 
winter.
  The VA has established access guidelines which provide that a veteran 
should be able to access primary care within 30 miles or 30 minutes 
from their homes in urban areas, and 60 miles or 60 minutes in rural 
areas. Only 59 percent of Maine veterans enrolled in the VA health care 
system meet those guidelines, and that means that more than 16,000 
Maine veterans live outside the access standards, not to mention the 
veterans who have not even enrolled to get VA health care. Perhaps one 
of the reasons they do not seek VA health care is because they are so 
far away.
  The VA's guidelines for access to inpatient hospital services provide 
that a veteran should live within 2 hours of inpatient services. Only 
52 percent of Maine veterans meet this guideline.
  Let me give you an example of what this all means in my State. 
Veterans in Maine, veterans have to travel to get specialized care, 
often to a Boston VA hospital; and if a veteran lives in the northern 
part of the State, say Caribou or Fort Kent, he probably cannot make a 
bus trip to Boston in one day. He will have to stay overnight in Bangor 
or Portland and take the rest of the ride the next day. On the third 
day, the veteran may finally have his appointment, and then either 
start back that day or the next day.
  So you can see to get specialized care in Boston, a veteran from 
northern Maine may take 3 to 5 days to go down and get that care. Of 
course, a relative or friend may make the drive, and it might happen in 
2 days or 2\1/2\ days instead of 3 to 5; but the problem is, how many 
people can afford to do that, how many people have the help they need?
  We need to enable veterans living in the most rural parts of our 
country to benefit from the same accessibility to services that 
veterans in more urban areas enjoy. In Maine, the VA staff did town 
hall meetings throughout the State to develop a market plan for the VA 
CARES process, and this plan recommended five new community-based 
outpatient clinics in rural areas to improve access, in addition to 
collaborating with the State's successful telemedicine program and to 
the continued use of contract care.
  I urge my colleagues to take to heart these difficulties faced by 
veterans in rural areas. Expanding access to care, particularly in 
these rural areas, must be a focal point of our efforts to reduce the 
huge backlog of veterans waiting for health care.
  As we consider the fiscal year 2005 budget and when we review the 
final CARES national plan, we must not let down our Nation's veterans. 
First, they deserve the highest quality of care, but we also must 
ensure that the VA health system provides access to that care for all 
veterans.

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