[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 91 (Thursday, June 12, 2014)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3623-S3624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HEALTH CARE

  This week the Senate stepped up united as we seldom are these days to 
talk about the veterans of that war and our other wars and the 
obligation that we have to our veterans. The bill that the Senate 
passed yesterday, which I cosponsored and I voted for, can be better 
and, frankly, it will be better after we get a chance to have a 
conference with our House colleagues--maybe a conference similar to the 
conferences we used to hold. It is time we get back to the normal way 
of doing business.
  But the underlying approach and key significant change this bill the 
Senate passed yesterday brings to the veterans is more options and more 
opportunities. Particularly our younger veterans want to see more 
choices. They want to have more information.
  When Senator Stabenow and I sponsored and initially put the bill 
forward in early 2013, the Excellence in Mental Health Act, the Iraq 
and Afghanistan veterans were among our greatest supporters along with 
law enforcement and the mental health community. This was for an act 
they thought had the potential to provide more options for treatment, 
more places to go, more ways to get the mental health treatment and 
access you would like to have that worked with family, that worked with 
jobs. These are young veterans who left the military but still have 
lots of obligations that they want to, need to, and should be trying to 
fulfill for themselves, their families, and the work they have chosen 
to do, so the assistance we can give them with more options is 
important.

  This bill will give veterans more options. If the Veterans' 
Administration fails to meet their needs in an appropriate way or if a 
veteran is 40 miles or an hour away--or any way you measure traffic and 
time--from a veterans facility, that veteran will have the ability to 
permanently get the care they need at any facility that accepts 
Medicare patients at the Medicare rate, and that would be the 
reimbursement rate the government and the VA will be obligated to pay.
  Even if a veteran lives next door to a VA hospital, if that hospital 
could not see that veteran within the time the law will ultimately 
decide is the critical time--by the way, there are occasions when the 
critical time is right away. For a veteran suffering from a heart 
attack or contemplating suicide, there is no waiting period for them. 
If a veteran can't be seen within 14 days for routine medical care, 
that veteran will get a card that says they can go wherever they want 
to go.
  I hope that is the way this final bill works out so veterans will 
have lots of options. I think the Veterans' Administration is going to 
be better if they have to compete. I have thought that for a long time.
  I was at the Truman veterans facility--I stand here at one of the 
desks Harry Truman used when he was in the Senate. His name is carved 
in the desk drawer. Anyway, I was at the Truman veterans facility in 
Columbia, MO, with my longtime good friend Dewey Rehms, who advises me 
on veterans issues with the VFW, and we were meeting with the people 
who run that hospital. Dewey Rehms said: As Senator Blunt has been 
saying for at least

[[Page S3624]]

10 years, we need to have more options for veterans, and I am here 
today to say that I think he has been right. Even though defenders and 
advocates of veterans hospitals and veterans systems want to make it 
better, we have been slow to embrace the idea that they want more 
options, but they, along with Congress, are now willing to accept more 
options, and this system will be better because veterans will have more 
choices.
  There are some issues that the Veterans' Administration is clearly 
better at than other facilities, and if they are not better than 
anybody else in dealing with those issues, we need to ask why. They are 
better at dealing with injuries that result from IEDs and explosive 
attacks, and so they should be better at dealing with eye injuries, 
loss of limb, and rehabilitation than anybody else in America. They 
should also be better at dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder 
than anybody else in America. But there is no reason they would be 
better at dealing with cancer or a heart problem or a lung issue. There 
is no reason to believe that at all.
  This is the time to really rethink not what is best for the Veterans' 
Administration but what is best for the veterans. Our goal should be 
doing what is best for veterans, not what is best for the Veterans' 
Administration.
  We have all seen the list, and too many Missouri facilities are high 
on that list with veterans waiting to get service. We have all heard 
about the lists and heard the stories about supervisors from one 
facility after another. And I am sure not every facility is telling the 
people they supervise: Here is how we are going to manage the people 
who want to be here so that it appears we are doing a better job than 
we are doing.
  We have had enough of that. We have had enough with appearing to be 
doing a better job than they are doing. Now is the time to insist that 
they do a better job. I think we took a big step in that direction 
yesterday.
  I look forward to this bill improving as the House and Senate work 
together to bring the two bills to a final vote so it can get on the 
President's desk to be signed into law and ultimately change the way we 
deal with veterans.
  While I am on the floor, I have a few additional items to mention. My 
office continues to get more letters about the unintended consequences 
when government thinks it can better manage people's health care than 
they can themselves. I have three examples with me today that have come 
into my office over the last few days.
  Brandon from St. James, MO, said:

       I purchased a separate health insurance policy for my 
     college-aged son because it was cheaper than continuing to 
     carry a family policy. It was a good policy with a decent 
     deductible through Blue Cross Blue Shield. We received a 
     notice that his insurance was going to be cancelled. This was 
     alarming to us and just plain wrong. The goal of Obamacare 
     was supposed to get more people insured. Instead it was doing 
     the opposite, it was cancelling his insurance.

  Brandon goes on to say:

       Then we got another notice later saying that he could keep 
     his current insurance after the President decided to extend 
     the mandate for another year.

  Brandon says now he is concerned about what will happen--as many 
people are--at the end of that year.
  The more we postpone and delay and say the law doesn't mean what the 
law says, the more we are confused. When you have a bad law, postponing 
and delaying it has some merit.
  Jerry from Jefferson City says he has a plan with really good 
benefits. Under the President's health care plan, his plan will now and 
in the future be subject to an additional tax because he was fortunate 
enough to have a really good plan.
  If they are really trying to get people the insurance they want--and 
hopefully as good an insurance plan as they could have--that is not 
something you would expect them to do.
  The third example is from Earl, who resides in Palmyra, MO. He said 
he is a senior citizen and found that his longtime preferred doctor is 
no longer in the network, so he has to pay to see the doctor he has 
always seen. His doctor visits have gone from $20 a visit to $45 a 
visit. So much for the pledge that if you like your health insurance, 
you can keep it or if you like your doctor, you can keep him.
  I hope we can find a way to rally around the health care challenge 
for everybody the way we figured out a way to rally around the health 
care challenge for veterans. We need a system that doesn't create all 
kinds of unintended consequences but just makes it easier for people to 
have access to the insurance they want, not the insurance the 
government says they should have.
  I see my colleagues are joining me, and I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Walsh). The Senator from Maine.

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