[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 20 (Tuesday, January 31, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H519]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  OUR VETERANS DESERVE ACCESS TO CARE

  (Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. AUSTIN SCOTT of Georgia. Madam Speaker, I rise today because our 
veterans deserve access to care at every corner of the country as they 
have selflessly defended this country.
  After Express Scripts, who manages the TRICARE benefit on behalf of 
the DOD, instituted network changes that cut out thousands of community 
pharmacies last year, my office received dozens of calls from veterans 
who are unable to access their prescriptions.
  Our local pharmacies have the drugs these veterans need now, but 
unless there are changes from the DOD that provide access that is 
actually adequate, our veterans cannot access the medications they need 
from community pharmacies.
  While the DOD drags their feet, veterans are being refused lifesaving 
medicines and offered unacceptable alternatives to the care they used 
to be able to receive.
  Mr. Kimsey, a veteran from Warner Robins, Georgia, is one of the many 
patients in my district who this new rule affected. Mr. Kimsey is a 
cancer patient at Central Georgia Cancer Care and is taking a chemo 
drug. He has been on this medication for about a year and was told that 
TRICARE would no longer pay for the medication at the local pharmacy. 
He called my office after trying to fill his prescriptions and only had 
five pills left of this critical drug.
  The new DOD-approved pharmacy said they could mail the drug to him in 
10 days, but he couldn't wait 10 days. This is just one example of why 
community pharmacists are so vital to patients, especially in rural 
areas.

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