[Congressional Record Volume 162, Number 145 (Monday, September 26, 2016)]
[House]
[Pages H5888-H5891]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NO VETERANS CRISIS LINE CALL SHOULD GO UNANSWERED ACT
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and
pass the bill (H.R. 5392) to direct the Secretary of Veterans Affairs
to improve the Veterans Crisis Line.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 5392
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``No Veterans Crisis Line Call
Should Go Unanswered Act''.
SEC. 2. IMPROVEMENTS TO VETERANS CRISIS LINE.
(a) Quality Assurance Document.--The Secretary of Veterans
Affairs shall develop a quality assurance document to use in
carrying out the Veterans Crisis Line. Such document shall--
(1) outline clearly defined and measurable performance
indicators and objectives to improve the responsiveness and
performance of the Veterans Crisis Line, including at backup
call centers;
(2) include quantifiable timeframes to meet designated
objectives to assist the Secretary in tracking the progress
of the Veterans Crisis Line and such backup call centers in
meeting the performance indicators and objectives specified
in paragraph (1); and
(3) with respect to such timeframes and objectives, be
consistent with guidance issued by the Office of Management
and Budget.
(b) Plan.--The Secretary shall develop a plan to ensure
that each telephone call, text message, and other
communications received by the Veterans Crisis Line,
including at backup call centers, is answered in a timely
manner by a person, consistent with the guidance established
by the American Association of Suicidology. Such plan shall
include guidelines to carry out periodic testing of the
Veterans Crisis Line, including such backup centers, during
each fiscal year to identify and correct any problems in a
timely manner.
(c) Submission.--Not later than 180 days after the date of
the enactment of this Act, the Secretary shall submit to the
Committees on Veterans' Affairs of the House of
Representatives and the Senate a report containing the
document developed under subsection (a) and the plan
developed under subsection (b).
(d) Veterans Crisis Line Defined.--In this section, the
term ``Veterans Crisis Line'' means the toll-free hotline for
veterans established under section 1720F(h) of title 38,
United States Code.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Miller) and the gentleman from California (Mr. Takano)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Florida.
General Leave
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their
remarks and to add extraneous material.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 5392, the No Veterans
Crisis Line Should Go Unanswered Act. The Department of Veterans
Affairs established the Veterans Crisis Line to ensure that any veteran
that was contemplating suicide would be able to call for help no matter
the time and no matter the circumstance. Over time, VCL's mission has
expanded to include veterans facing all manners of personal
emergencies, and the Veterans Crisis Line services have expanded to
include a chat service and a texting operation. Yet the crisis line
purpose has remained the same: to provide a place where veterans facing
crisis would be able to get the help that they need any time of day or
night.
However, earlier this year, the VA Inspector General found that some
calls to the crisis line were routed to backup crisis centers and
ultimately sent to voice mail and that other line callers did not
receive the immediate assistance that they desperately needed.
The IG also noted that VA failed to provide a directive or handbook
detailing the guidance necessary for the proper Veterans Crisis Line
processes and procedures, and it failed to provide adequate orientation
and training to crisis line staff, it failed to monitor contracted
backup call centers, and experienced a number of quality assurance
gaps.
Though VA has assured us that these issues have been addressed and
will never happen again, the risk of leaving a veteran in the midst of
a crisis alone and without help is unacceptable to any Member of this
body.
H.R. 5392 would require that VA develops a quality assurance document
that includes clearly defined and measurable performance standards with
appropriate timelines and benchmarks to improve responsiveness and
outcomes for the crisis line mainline and contracted backup call
centers. It would also require VA to develop a plan to ensure that each
telephone call, each text message, or other communications received by
the crisis line mainline or at a contracted backup call center is
answered in a timely manner by an appropriate, qualified live person,
consistent with the guidance established by the American Association of
Suicidology.
This bill is sponsored by my friend and colleague, Congressman David
Young from Iowa. I want to thank him for his efforts and his leadership
on sponsoring this very important and, to some, very simple fix to
something that needs to be taken care of.
Nothing could be more important than guaranteed timely access to the
veterans' services and support that they need in an emergency
situation.
Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this commonsense
piece of legislation.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today regarding H.R. 5392, the No Veterans Crisis
Line Call Should Go Unanswered Act.
The Veterans Crisis Line actually provides three ways veterans can
access help when they are in crisis. Veterans, servicemembers, and
their loved ones can call the 1-800 number, send a text message, or
chat online to receive free, confidential support 24 hours a day, 7
days a week, 365 days a year, even if they are not registered with VA
or enrolled in VA health care.
The responders at the Veterans Crisis Line are especially trained and
experienced in helping veterans of all ages and circumstances, from
those coping with mental health issues that were never addressed to
recent veterans dealing with relationships or the transition back to
civilian life.
Since its launch in 2007 through May 2016, the Veterans Crisis Line
has answered over 2.3 million calls and initiated the dispatch of
emergency services to callers in imminent crisis nearly 61,000 times.
This bill requires improvements to the Veterans Crisis Line by having
the
[[Page H5889]]
VA create quality assurance guidelines that will include clearly
defined and measurable performance indicators and objectives to improve
the responsiveness and performance of the Veterans Crisis Line.
The bill also requires the VA to develop a plan to ensure that each
telephone call, text message, and other communications received by the
Veterans Crisis Line is answered in a timely manner by a person,
consistent with the guidance established by the American Association of
Suicidology.
As Suicide Prevention Awareness Month comes to a close, Congress must
take these necessary steps to improve the Veterans Crisis Line for all
veterans who depend on it. I support this legislation, and I urge its
passage.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MILLER of Florida. I am proud to introduce the sponsor of this
important piece of legislation. The gentleman is from the Third
District of Iowa, from the small town of Van Meter, Iowa, home to Bob
``The Heater From Van Meter.''
Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr.
Young).
Mr. YOUNG of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, earlier this year, I introduced the
No Veterans Crisis Line Call Should Go Unanswered Act, H.R. 5392, a
bipartisan piece of legislation, doing this after hearing from a
constituent who called the Veterans Crisis Line for help but never was
connected to a live person. Though I have spoken on the floor about
this issue before, as well as others, I remain deeply concerned with
the many struggles and challenges our veterans face as they transition
from Active Duty to civilian life and beyond.
These are brave women and men who have sacrificed much in service to
their country. Now, our servicemembers have given up holidays, missed
birthdays, weddings, and other important life events of their family
members, communities, and friends. They have been mobilized or deployed
to some of the most volatile regions of the world for months on end,
and the list goes on. They are our friends, family, and neighbors, and
they make significant sacrifices because they believe in this great
Nation and strive to protect the freedoms we have guaranteed.
Now, unfortunately, more and more veterans carry deep scars--
emotional war wounds--ones we cannot see. These men and women deserve
our support. Now, our country has a responsibility to ensure our brave
veterans not only have the benefits that they have earned, but have
access to services and resources intended to help them through the
storms of life.
Mr. Speaker, it is hard for anyone to ask for help sometimes, and the
sad fact is today and every day this week, 20 veterans will take their
lives. So it is unacceptable for any veteran who is reaching out for
help and a listening ear to be turned away unanswered, especially when
help may mean the difference between life and death. That is why I
introduced, with bipartisan support from my colleagues, legislation to
make critical improvements to the Veterans Crisis Line.
This bipartisan bill requires the VA to create and implement
documented plans to improve responsiveness and performance of the
crisis line--an important step to ensure our veterans have unimpeded
access to the mental health resources that they need.
Even the VA has acknowledged these problems, which were also
documented in two separate investigations conducted by the VA Office of
Inspector General and the Government Accountability Office. This bill
drives accountability within the Veterans Crisis Line, ensuring any
call or text or messages are answered, and ensuring the quality
processes, including those guiding staff training, are addressed and
provided to Congress.
{time} 1615
Our men and women in uniform have answered our Nation's call, and we
must work to do better and ensure their calls do not go unanswered.
Mr. Speaker, I want to especially thank Chairman Miller and his staff
for working so closely with me on this bill. It is a pleasure serving
with him, and his leadership on these issues will be missed in his
retirement.
September is National Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. It is only
fitting that we pass this bill today to help our veterans.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from
Minnesota (Mr. Walz), my colleague and friend, the highest ranking
noncommissioned officer to serve in Congress.
Mr. WALZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California (Mr.
Takano) for his unwavering work for the care of our veterans. And to
the chairman, as has been noted so often, at a time when partisanship
seems to win the day or be on the news, I can assure him that the care
of our Nation's veterans knows no political boundaries, and the work
that has been done should be noted.
I also want to thank the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Young) for bringing
this bill forward. Like everything in life, there is a symmetry to
things, and I think the story of how we got to this point might be well
spoken or told. The gentleman represents the Third District of Iowa,
the new one.
Back in 2006, there was a young Army Reservist named Joshua Omvig,
who grew up in a small community in Iowa, literally down the road from
where they filmed ``Field of Dreams.'' He returned from Iraq a week
before Thanksgiving in 2006 and joined his family at that most American
of all holidays to be back together. That evening of Thanksgiving,
Joshua took his own life in front of his mother.
The crushing loss of a son, the crushing loss of a son of the Midwest
was overwhelming. But the Omvigs did something that Americans do and
something that this Nation always does. They turned their grief into
action. They went to their Congressman at that time in the old Third
District, Lieutenant Colonel Leonard Boswell, himself a decorated
Vietnam veteran and helicopter pilot. They put together what then
became the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act. This was back
in 2007, when nobody was talking about 20 veterans a day and no one was
talking about mental health and no one was talking much about
transition. We were in the heart of the Iraq war. We were in
Afghanistan. Our veterans were coming back, and, rightfully noted, we
were unprepared for them.
In this piece of legislation, there are a couple of sections in here
that are very clear on what Mr. Young's legislation does--exactly what
it should do and what this Congress should do--provide oversight and
improve on legislation.
Section 1720F said that the VA would establish 24-hour mental health
care. In carrying out the comprehensive program, the Secretary shall
provide for mental health care availability to veterans on a 24-hour
basis. It would establish a hotline to carry this out, and the
Secretary would provide a toll-free hotline for veterans to be staffed
by appropriately trained mental health professionals.
And for those who don't think that that was needed, since that time,
2.5 million calls have been made to that hotline, 300,000 online chats,
and 55,000 texts. When someone calls that line, they are at a breaking
point. One of our warriors is at a point where they had nowhere else to
turn.
The intent of this Congress and this Nation--not Democrat, not
Republican--was to provide them the resources and the trained personnel
necessary. What was noted in a GAO report, what Mr. Young has noted,
and what this committee has noted is that the VA was not fulfilling
fully what they should have. If one veteran falls through the cracks,
we have failed. I don't care if 2.5 million were picked up. If 2.5
million plus one, and that last one was not picked up, we have failed.
Mr. Young's piece of legislation is simple, eloquent, asks the VA to
do what they are supposed to do, and then do what should expected:
report back to Congress so that we can provide our oversight ability.
I want to thank the chairman, the ranking member, and this committee
for doing exactly what we are supposed to do. We are supposed to make
sure that the VA fulfills the commitment that the United States and its
citizens want to care for every single veteran that is out there. This
was a smart piece of legislation. It was championed by the parents of a
warrior who took his own life.
[[Page H5890]]
And keep in mind, when this was championed, we did not even bury our
veterans who took their own lives with military honors because it was
still something we didn't talk about. It was believed that they weren't
casualties of war. In the 10 years since that time, we have made
strides, we have made progress, and we understand that the cost of war
continues on.
I want to thank Mr. Young for continuing the legacy that comes out of
Iowa, the deep care for those that serve in our heartland, continuing
the bipartisan legacy of the Third District of Iowa to improve on a
really smart, needed piece of legislation.
Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to support this, and I
encourage this body to continue to find ways to solve problems, work
together, and show that, when it comes to unity around our veterans,
there is not an inch of daylight between the two sides of this body.
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the
gentleman from the Second District of Maine (Mr. Poliquin). He is from
the metropolis of Oakland, Maine.
Mr. POLIQUIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman for recognizing that
Oakland, Maine, is a central Maine metropolis, and I thank the chairman
for quickly bringing this very important bipartisan bill to the floor.
I want to salute the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Young), the Congressman
who has been in the lead with respect to this issue.
Mr. Speaker, when I was a boy growing up in central Maine, our brave
men and women in uniform who were returning from the battlefield in
Vietnam were not treated well. I remember those days, and a lot of us
also do. I believe our country, Mr. Speaker, has learned a lesson that
that shall never happen again.
Sadly, Mr. Speaker, today, 22 veterans commit suicide in our country
every day, and the majority of those veterans have served in Vietnam.
When one of our veterans, any veteran, is in trouble and they call the
crisis hotline, we need to make sure that those phones are answered and
the individuals on the other end, our heroes, are not hung up on,
inadvertently or otherwise.
We need to make sure we take care of our veterans. Mr. Speaker, in
the State of Maine, we love our veterans. The character of our country
is measured in great part by how we treat our veterans. I am thrilled
to cosponsor this bill because it will help correct this issue.
I would like to close, Mr. Speaker, with a quote from George
Washington: ``The willingness with which our young people are likely to
serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly
proportional to how they perceive how the veterans of earlier wars were
treated and appreciated by their nation.''
Mr. Speaker, I thank Mr. Young for bringing this important
legislation to the floor.
I encourage everybody in this Chamber, Republicans and Democrats, to
get behind this terrific bipartisan piece of legislation.
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentlewoman from
Hawaii (Ms. Gabbard), who is also a member of the Hawaiian National
Guard and an Iraq war veteran.
Ms. GABBARD. Mr. Speaker, not too long ago, I was woken up abruptly
one morning by a text message from a friend of mine that I had both
served and trained with in the Army. His message was alarming because
it came after many months of struggle in his life: nightmares,
posttraumatic stress, many late nights staying up self-medicating with
alcohol, troubles with his family, and a constant desire coming from
him that the only way he knew how to deal with the challenges that he
had was to deploy again and again and again.
Finally, he was home and he got to a point where he felt comfortable
asking for help. He summoned up the courage one day--he was at his
civilian job during the day--finally to call his local VA hotline, and
he got a voice-mail.
This strong, battle-worn, courageous infantryman broke down in tears
and ran out of the office building where he worked. His frustration and
disappointment and even heartbreak was palpable that, even as he had
spent so many years of his life answering the call to duty again and
again and again, sacrificing so much, at that one moment that he made
that very difficult decision to finally ask for help, no one was there.
No one answered the phone.
He detailed this in a text message to me. I immediately called him
and spent a couple of hours on the phone with him talking things
through. I thanked him--he said: Sorry for bothering you about this--
but I thanked him for making that call and letting me know what
happened to him, giving me the opportunity to not only see how I could
help him as my friend, but to see how we collectively can take action
to help all of our brothers and sisters, unfortunately, many of whom
are going through challenges that are not so different from his.
Just a few days ago, a veteran in my district called the Veterans
Crisis Line for the first time. Her psychologist had encouraged her to
place a test call to the crisis line so she could feel comfortable with
how it worked, she could see how it worked, and she would feel
comfortable making that phone call in the future if she got to a point
where she needed it at a point of emergency. So she called that number
with her psychologist and they waited on hold for 24 minutes. It took
24 minutes before someone finally answered the phone.
Now, I can tell you, when I call the airlines to change a reservation
or when I call the bank to deal with an issue, I get frustrated when I
get placed on hold for 5 minutes or 10 minutes. I feel like this is a
waste of my time and I am going to hang up the phone.
It is virtually impossible for most people to understand that, when
someone has a bottle of prescription drugs in their hand or a gun or
they are on the verge of taking their own life and they are sitting on
hold for 24 minutes, what do we think the outcome will be? Sometimes we
are seeing that the shortcomings and gaps of the VA and these help
lines have been filled by phone call networks that have been slapped
together by troops, whether they are soldiers or marines or airmen or
sailors, who are looking out for their buddy, doing what they can to
make sure that everyone has got each other's phone numbers so that, if
you get to that point where you need help, you have got someone to call
who is going to answer the phone, who is going to talk you down from
the edge, helping to make sure that, after they have survived the
rigors and horrors of war and combat, they have a chance to live in
peace when they come home.
With the average of 22 veterans who go through all of that and who do
come home yet are still taking their lives every single day, we cannot
afford to give up. We cannot afford 24 minutes on hold.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The time of the gentlewoman has expired.
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlewoman from Hawaii an
additional 30 seconds.
Ms. GABBARD. This is why I strongly support and have cosponsored this
critical piece of legislation, and I commend my colleague from Iowa for
introducing it, H.R. 5392, the No Veterans Crisis Line Call Should Go
Unanswered Act. This bill establishes quality standards and metrics to
make sure that every call to the Veterans Crisis Line is answered
quickly and by a live trained person.
I urge all of my colleagues to join me in passing this legislation
today because the lives of our veterans depend on it.
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. TAKANO. Mr. Speaker, I ask all of my colleagues to vote in favor
of this legislation. I thank my colleagues who came to the floor to
speak in support of H.R. 5392.
I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I, too, urge all of my colleagues
on my side of the aisle to please join me in supporting this particular
piece of legislation.
I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Miller) that the House suspend the rules
and pass the bill, H.R. 5392.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. YOUNG of Iowa. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
[[Page H5891]]
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this motion will be postponed.
____________________