[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 10 (Thursday, January 16, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S445-S447]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. SANDERS:
  S. 1950. A bill to improve the provision of medical services and 
benefits to veterans, and for other purposes; read the first time.
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, today as the chairman of the committee I 
have introduced the most comprehensive piece of veterans legislation 
that we have seen in a very long time. The Comprehensive Veterans 
Health and Benefit and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 
delivers on the promises that we have made to our servicemembers and I 
believe will have the support of Members of the Senate and of the 
House. It addresses virtually every single issue the veterans community 
has been concerned about.
  What we have done now is taken two omnibus bills and wrapped them 
into this legislation. In addition, we have taken other pieces of 
legislation passed by the committee, and we have added to that based on 
some recent developments.
  This legislation is the product of a year of bipartisan work and 
includes provisions important to almost every single veterans service 
organization and dozens of Members of the Senate, Republican, Democrat, 
and Independent, many of which were reported out of the Veterans' 
Affairs Committee with strong bipartisan support.
  This legislation completely eliminates the cuts that were made to the 
military retiree cost-of-living adjustments. I know there was great 
concern here in the Senate from Democrats and Republicans about that 
cut, as well as in the House of Representatives. I am happy to say this 
legislation completely eliminates the cuts that were made to the 
military retiree cost-of-living adjustments.
  As we all know, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2013 that was passed a 
few days ago would lower cost-of-living adjustments for military 
retirees by reducing the annual adjustment by 1 percent until age 62. 
The American people have spoken very loudly and very clearly. They have 
told the Congress to restore those cuts to military retirees and we 
have listened. I applaud the House and the Senate for restoring these 
cuts for disabled military retirees and survivors in the appropriations 
act we passed today. Today we took care of part of the problem. But we 
have to do more. What the comprehensive veterans bill I have introduced 
today does is restore the full COLA to all military retirees, every 
single retiree. This bill restores these COLAs and does much more.
  I wish to take a moment to highlight some of the key provisions of 
this comprehensive piece of legislation. Let me say, this legislation 
is based on listening very carefully to what the veterans organizations 
have told us in private meetings, in hearings, and at some of the very 
large hearings we have held with the American Legion, the VFW, the DAV, 
and many other service organizations. Let me briefly touch on some of 
the provisions we are addressing, some of the concerns we are 
addressing in this comprehensive veterans legislation which, I should 
add, is fully paid for. It is fully paid for.
  In the first omnibus bill that we passed, S. 944, the Veterans Health 
and Benefits Improvement Act of 2013, we dealt with in-State tuition 
assistance for post-9/11 veterans, an issue of great concern to young 
veterans and to all of the veterans organizations. This package 
includes provisions the committee's ranking member Senator Burr and I 
worked together on, that would help servicemembers transition back into 
civilian life by making recently separated veterans eligible for 
tuition at the in-State rate.
  Given the nature of our Armed Forces, servicemembers have little to 
no say as to where they reside during military service. Therefore, many 
of these servicemembers have not had sufficient time to establish 
residency by the time they go back to school. This legislation would 
help the transition of our brave men and women who have sacrificed so 
much in defense of our country by giving them a fair shot at attaining 
educational goals without incurring an additional financial burden. We 
address that issue in this legislation.
  Clearly one of the issues that has been an embarrassment to all of us 
is the degree of sexual assault we have seen in the military. What this 
legislation does is address that issue as well. While the Pentagon, 
Congress, and other stakeholders continue to work to end sexual assault 
within the military, something we have to focus on, we must nonetheless 
do everything we can to ensure that the VA is a welcoming place for 
those who have survived sexual assault. That is why this legislation 
includes important provisions that would improve the delivery of care 
and benefits to individuals who experience sexual trauma by serving in 
the military. These provisions were inspired by Ruth Moore, a veteran 
who struggled for 23 years to receive VA disability compensation.
  It would expand access to VA counseling and care to active-duty 
servicemembers and members of the Guard and Reserve who experienced 
sexual assault during inactive-duty training. It also takes a number of 
steps to improve the adjudication of disability compensation claims 
based on military sexual trauma.
  This legislation will give the VA additional tools to provide victims 
of sexual trauma with the care and benefits they need to confront the 
emotional and physical consequences of these horrific acts. Sexual 
assault in the military is unacceptable and this committee is, in a 
significant way, addressing that issue.
  One of the concerns we have heard from many veterans and veterans 
organizations is the issue of overmedication. Many of our veterans come 
back and receive in some cases 5, 10 different types of pills to 
address some of the very serious problems they have. What this bill 
does is expand, among many other things, access to complementary and 
alternative medicine. The VA already does a good job in that area. This 
would expand their capability to provide complementary and alternative 
medicine.
  Maintaining the VA's world-class health care system remains a 
priority for our committee. I am pleased we were able to respond to 
calls from veterans to increase access to complementary and alternative 
medicine for the treatment of chronic pain, mental health conditions, 
and chronic disease. By expanding access to these treatment options--
options such as acupuncture, meditation, massage therapy, and many 
others--we can enhance the likelihood veterans get the care they need 
in the way that works for them. These treatments are becoming more and 
more popular. More and more veterans want access to them and that is 
what we do in this legislation.
  Additionally, this legislation calls for the VA to promote healthy 
weight in veterans by increasing their access to fitness facilities as 
a healthy weight is critical to combating multiple chronic diseases, 
including diabetes and heart disease. In other words, the

[[Page S446]]

most cost-effective and best way to treat disease is to prevent that 
disease by making sure our veterans have the opportunity to keep 
healthy. This legislation does that as well.
  This legislation further honors as veterans certain persons who 
performed service in the Reserve components of the Armed Forces. I know 
how important this provision is for all those who wore this Nation's 
uniforms as members of the Reserves. I am pleased we will finally honor 
their service with passage of this legislation.
  This legislation also expands benefits for surviving spouses, for the 
spouses of those who gave their lives to defend this country. I want to 
make special note of provisions that will be included in this package 
that would also strengthen the benefits and services provided to 
surviving family members by addressing a number of concerns brought to 
the attention of this committee by the Gold Star Wives in testimony 
last year.
  Obviously the Gold Star Wives are the spouses of those soldiers who 
died in combat. Specifically, this bill would provide additional 
dependency and indemnity compensation for surviving spouses with 
children in order to provide financial support in the difficult period 
following the loss of a loved one. This bill would also expand the 
Marine Gunnery Sergeant John David Fry Scholarship to include surviving 
spouses of members of the Armed Forces who died in the line of duty. 
That means surviving spouses would become eligible for post-9/11 GI 
bill benefits, setting them and their families up for success in the 
years to follow.
  One of the issues that has occupied a great deal of time and energy 
on the committee deals with claim processing. We all know that for the 
last number of years the VA has had a very significant backlog. That is 
clearly not acceptable. When a veteran brings forth a claim, that claim 
should be processed in a reasonable period of time with a reasonable 
degree of accuracy. We are all too well familiar with the challenges of 
the claims backlog. I am very pleased to see that the VA is making 
significant progress on this complex issue. They are going from paper 
to digital. That is a huge process. As a result, the backlog is 
declining. That is good news, but we have to do more.
  This legislation would support VA's ongoing efforts and would make 
needed improvements to the claims system. Among a number of claims-
related provisions, this bill for the first time would require the 
Department to publicly report on both claims processing goals and 
actual production. This would allow Congress and the public to closely 
track and measure VA's progress on this difficult issue. The Secretary 
of the VA Eric Shinseki has proposed a very ambitious goal for the end 
of 2015. We want to make sure they are on track.
  That is some of the provisions included in the first bill. Let me 
talk a little about bit about the second omnibus bill. Both of those 
bills passed unanimously out of committee. The Comprehensive Veterans 
Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014 
includes provisions from S. 1581, a second omnibus bill that moved out 
of the committee with unanimous support at the November markup. Here 
are some of the provisions in that omnibus.
  The improvement and expansion of dental care. I don't know about New 
Mexico, but I can tell you that in Vermont, and in fact in many parts 
of this country, inability to access affordable dental care is a major 
crisis. It is true for the general public and it is true for veterans 
as well. The truth is, right now the VA, with the exception of service-
connected oral problems, does not provide dental care to our veterans. 
I think that is a very significant omission.
  What this legislation does is, starting off with a large-scale pilot 
project, begin the effort to make sure dental care becomes part of VA 
health care. This is something that I think the veterans throughout 
this country will be very excited to learn about and to participate in.
  Those are some of the provisions that were in the two omnibus bills, 
and they passed unanimously.
  Let me talk about some other legislation that came out of the 
committee, in some cases with bipartisan support, but not unanimously. 
The first one deals with advanced appropriations for the VA; that is, 
S. 932, the Putting Veterans Funding First Act of 2013. That was 
introduced, as I recall, by Senators Begich and Boozman in a bipartisan 
way. Here is the story, which is very important: As we saw last year, 
in the event of a prolonged government shutdown, the Veterans' 
Administration would not have been able to issue disability 
compensation or pension payments or provide educational benefit to 
millions of deserving veterans.

  The truth is that during that shutdown, we were perhaps a week or 10 
days away from disabled veterans, and others, not getting the benefits 
so many of them depend upon. It is what they depend upon to buy 
groceries, it is what they depend upon to pay a mortgage, and to make 
their car payments. We were a week or 10 days away from those veterans 
not getting those benefits.
  I am happy to say that in this legislation we have addressed that 
issue, and we have moved forward with advanced appropriations for 
mandatory accounts at the VA.
  Our economy is making slow progress. We are creating jobs, but nobody 
believes we are anywhere near where we want to be. Real unemployment in 
this country is close to 13 percent. In my view, we owe a great deal to 
our veterans who have left their families, their jobs, gone abroad, and 
then when they come back, they are unable to find employment. What our 
legislation does is put into this comprehensive bill the Renew Our VOW 
to Hire Heroes, S. 6, the Putting Veterans Back to Work Act of 2013. 
This legislation would reauthorize provisions from the VOW to Hire 
Heroes Act, including a 2-year extension to the Veterans Training 
Assistance Program which retrains unemployed veterans for high-demand 
occupations. There are other employment provisions in this legislation 
as well.
  Several years ago, under the leadership of our colleague Patty 
Murray, who was my predecessor as chair of the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee, we proudly passed the Caregivers Act. The Caregivers Act was 
a very important piece of legislation which said to families who were 
taking care of disabled veterans: We understand what you are doing is 
very difficult, and we are going to give you some assistance.
  The legislation we had passed dealt with post-9/11 veterans and their 
families. After listening to the concerns of pre-9/11 veterans and 
their family members, I introduced S. 851, the Caregivers Expansion and 
Improvement Act of 2013 to extend eligibility for the caregivers 
programs to veterans' families of all eras. So we took this program, 
which was working well, and we said we are going to pay attention to 
the needs of all families who are taking care of men and women who put 
their lives on the line to defend us and have become disabled, and that 
is in this legislation as well.
  Also in this legislation is language which will extend eligibility to 
enroll in VA health care, and that is S. 1604. We all know that early 
diagnosis of health care conditions is critically important. Under the 
current law, recently separated veterans have 5 years of free health 
care from the VA. This legislation would extend the period of time for 
these individuals, including members of the active component, the 
National Guard, and Reserves. They will be eligible to enroll in the VA 
health care system for 10 years post deployment. We go from 5 years to 
10 years.
  This benefit has been incredibly helpful to our most recent 
generation of servicemembers, and extending the enrollment period will 
allow more individuals to take advantage of VA's high-quality, cost-
effective health care system, including important access to mental 
health care services.
  Additionally, this legislation simplifies the process for determining 
eligibility for enrollment in VA health care for lower income veterans. 
Currently VA uses an extremely complex calculation of geographic income 
thresholds that vary from county to county. You can have one veteran in 
one county in Vermont, another person living a mile away, and one is 
eligible for VA health care because of his or her income, but another 
person with the same income is not eligible. My legislation establishes 
one income threshold per State, simplifies the process, and

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will enable more veterans to be eligible for VA health care.
  This legislation also includes S. 131, the Women Veterans and Other 
Health Care Improvements Act of 2013. With the widespread use of 
improvised explosive devices throughout Iraq and Afghanistan, both 
female and male servicemembers have found themselves with increased 
risk of spinal cord, reproductive, and urinary tract injury. Many of 
these veterans dreamed of starting a family, but their injuries 
prevented them from conceiving, and this legislation will help them 
fulfill their dreams.
  We have three more important provisions I want to briefly touch upon, 
and that is, once again, the restoration of full COLA for all military 
retirees. In an effort to address concerns regarding the cost-of-living 
adjustments for all military retirees, this bill would reaffirm the 
commitment Congress made to our servicemembers and veterans by ensuring 
consistent and appropriate funding for military retirees and veterans. 
This very important provision is in this legislation.
  Furthermore, there has been a concern that many CBOCs, community-
based outreach clinics, that have been planned all over this country 
have been unable to be built for a variety of technical reasons. We 
addressed that issue as well. This bill also improves access to mental 
health treatment for veterans.
  Let me conclude by saying we give a lot of speeches about the respect 
we have for the men and women who put their lives on the line to defend 
this country. They have come forward through the veterans committee and 
they have said: We have concerns. We have concerns about health care; 
we have concerns about how quickly the benefits that we apply for come 
to us. They have been very loud and clear in saying--and we agree with 
them--that it is unacceptable that pensions promised to veterans have 
been cut. There have been many other issues dealing with employment and 
dealing with education.
  What this bill does in a comprehensive way is to say to the veterans 
of this country--the millions and millions of people who have given so 
much to us--we hear your concerns. We hear your concerns, and we are 
going to address your concerns.
  I want to take this moment to thank majority leader Senator Reid. He 
has been very supportive of not only veterans in general but supportive 
of this effort to make sure we keep our promises to the veterans of 
this country. That bill has been introduced. My hope is we can get it 
to the floor as soon as possible.
  I hope very much that although there is a partisan climate, that on 
this issue of keeping our promises to the men and women who have put 
their lives on the line to defend this country, we can come together as 
a Senate and as a House and have the President sign this bill which 
will mean so much to so many.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut is recognized.
  Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I want to start by thanking Chairman 
Sanders of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, where I serve, for his 
extraordinary vision and leadership and join him in thanking the 
majority leader for his commitment to this kind of comprehensive and 
aggressive approach to revise and reinvigorate, reinvent and reform, 
veterans programs in a comprehensive and overarching approach.
  I will be speaking at greater length in the days and weeks to come, 
but I want to join the Senator in committing all of us--I hope on a 
bipartisan basis--to this effort to fix the flaws and fulfill the 
vision this Nation owes to the men and women who have served and 
sacrificed year after year.
  This program recognizes a fundamental truth: We are dealing with 
different populations of different ages, and within those populations, 
people with different needs and challenges, and a comprehensive program 
is necessary to address the obligation. It is an obligation we owe them 
to make sure that we leave no veteran behind and keep faith with every 
man and woman who has served and sacrificed for this Nation.
  It fixes the flaws of the last budget agreement that reduced the 
cost-of-living adjustment on retirees' pensions. It commits the Nation 
to economic opportunity and real jobs--training for the jobs that exist 
now and the jobs of the future. It reforms loan and aid programs for 
college education and also for noncollege education.
  It addresses the gaps in health care, not just by promising but 
performing. And, of course, it will also necessarily help veterans who 
may be preyed upon by schemes and scams, legal or illegal, and that is 
a very desperate and challenging need for this Nation to address, and 
hopefully it will do so on a bipartisan basis.
  There should be no reason and no justification for opposing an effort 
that is paid for--and I stress paid for. My hope is we will have 
bipartisan support for this visionary and courageous measure that says 
to America's veterans: We will keep faith with you. We will leave no 
veteran behind.
  One of the first promises I made 3 years ago in the first speech I 
gave on the floor of this Chamber was I would work and fight 
aggressively for the veterans of this Nation. I intend to work for this 
program--work to improve it--and continue to listen to the Veterans of 
Foreign Wars, the Vietnam Veterans of America, the American Legion, and 
all of the groups that represent our veterans so ably, and speak for 
them. The voices and faces of Connecticut's veterans have been with me 
always, and I see them always when I return. I will work tirelessly for 
this program.
  Again, my thanks to all of the members of the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee who will be supporting this program, and to our chairman 
Senator Sanders for his great leadership.

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