[Congressional Record Volume 163, Number 106 (Wednesday, June 21, 2017)]
[Senate]
[Page S3672]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                          Veterans Healthcare

  Mr. President, a lot of us wake up in the morning with a plan for the 
day, and we know what we are going to do each hour--and every 5 minutes 
if you are a Member of the Senate. Some days surprise you. I went to 
breakfast this morning for Members of the Senate who are veterans of 
the U.S. military. There were three of us at that breakfast. There were 
supposed to be more, but some did not come at the last minute.
  One of the people at the breakfast handed me a piece of paper--four 
pages as a matter of fact--and asked: Have you seen this?
  I did not know what it was, but I turned and looked at it. It was a 
white paper on the impact of President Trump's proposed budget on the 
American veteran.
  The guy said: You are the chairman of the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee. I want you to explain why all of this is true.
  I quickly turned through it, from one page to another, and looked at 
each of the headlines and subtitles. Every one of them was wrong. There 
was not a statement of fact in it, but there was a purpose to the 
paper.
  So I thought all morning about what I would do today to try and get 
the word out about what is true without getting into a partisan or a 
bickering battle on the floor of the Senate about documents that have 
been sent out circuitously by one Member of the Senate or another. 
Facts are facts, and facts are stubborn things. It is very important 
for me as chairman of the committee to make sure that the Members of 
the Senate know what we are dealing with as we lead up to making 
important decisions.
  This white paper alleges that President Trump's budget is a 
circuitous route to privatize VA health services for our veterans, 
which is patently untrue and wrong, and the authors of this in the 
Senate who have written it know it is untrue because they are on the 
committee. It further alleges that the funding of healthcare for 
veterans has been cannibalized by privatization programs in order to 
take healthcare out of the Veterans Health Administration and put it 
into the private sector.
  I know, within a few weeks, that I am going to be coming to the floor 
with, hopefully, the entire Veterans' Affairs Committee and will be 
seeking additional funds for the Choice Program so as to continue to 
meet the demand for our veterans and their healthcare.
  It was 2\1/2\ years ago that this Senate and this Congress and the 
former President passed and signed legislation that guaranteed that 
every veteran, no matter where he lived, could get services within the 
private sector in his community that were approved by the VA--services 
that he could not get from the VA anywhere. In other words, he got a 
choice. If he were denied an appointment within 30 days, he got a 
choice if he lived more than 40 miles from the service area. It became 
known as the Choice Program--popular but difficult to manage. It was 
popular in that 2.7 million appointments were held in the next 2 years 
over the previous 2 years because of the increased accessibility of 
healthcare for our veterans.

  I come to the floor to say that the Veterans' Affairs Committee is 
working with the appropriators and the authorizers to see to it that 
the healthcare money that needs to be appropriated for our veterans is 
appropriately done in the budget proposal that we pass out of this 
body.
  I want everybody on the floor to remember, every time you allege as a 
Member of the Senate that money for veterans is being cannibalized and 
that they are not going to get their health services, you are accusing 
the Congress and the Senate of not doing their constitutional duty of 
providing the funds we guarantee these men and these women when they 
voluntarily sign up to serve our country, serve for the eligible time 
necessary, and get VA status.
  I am never going to forsake my obligation to the men and women who 
serve us today, have served us in the past, and will serve us in the 
future. I am never going to be one of those politicians who is not 
trustworthy in standing behind every promise that is made.
  We have made a great promise to the veterans of America, and we are 
going to keep it because they made the greatest promise of all--that 
they would risk their lives for each of us.
  So, if you get a document that reads ``The Impact of President 
Trump's Proposed Budget on America's Veterans'' and read it and it 
talks about the cannibalization of VA healthcare and its going to a 
privatized system of healthcare, put it in the trash can because that 
is where it belongs. It is full of quotes that have been taken out of 
context and that have been put together to tell a story to frighten 
folks.
  Today and every day, we are in the process in the Veterans' Affairs 
Committee of working toward seeing to it that we meet the funding 
shortfalls that exist, to see to it that our veterans get the 
healthcare that they deserve and they come to our Veterans Health 
Administration for or that they have a choice, and we will continue to 
do so.
  I have but one responsibility in the U.S. Senate, which is of 
paramount importance, and that is my chairmanship on the Veterans' 
Affairs Committee. I am not going to let our veterans down, and I am 
not going to let somebody else allege that we on the committee are 
trying to do something that would not help the veterans or guarantee 
them their healthcare. On the contrary, we are going to see to it that 
nobody else takes it away. We are going to do for our veterans what 
they have done for us--pledge our sacred honor to see to it that they 
get the service they deserve, have fought for, and have risked their 
lives for.
  I thank the Senator from Utah for yielding the time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah.