[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6766]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   RURAL VETERANS ACCESS TO CARE ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MORAN of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, as many in this House of 
Representatives know, I represent one of the largest congressional 
districts in this country of over 53,000 square miles. The district is 
about the size of the State of Illinois. It is bigger than 25 of 26 
States east of the Mississippi River. It has more hospitals than any 
other congressional district, but it has no Veterans Administration 
Hospital.
  Some veterans in my rural district have experienced great difficulty 
in traveling to distant VA health facilities to access care. Though we 
have been successful in opening several VA outpatient clinics in the 
First Congressional District, access to care remains a real challenge 
for veterans living in rural Kansas.
  I would like to share a couple of stories from Kansans who have 
written me recently. I received the following letter from the wife of a 
World War II veteran: ``My husband and I have been residents of a long-
term care facility for 2 years, and he is unable to travel 65 miles to 
take a physical at the Hays Kansas VA clinic, as is required by the VA 
to receive prescription benefits. They have stopped filling his 
prescription medicine. Veterans like Ralph gave several years of their 
lives for our country, and I feel it is a very ungrateful way to treat 
them.''
  The second case involves an elderly veteran from Hoxie, Kansas, who 
is in need of a pair of glasses. This veteran was told he must travel 
over 4 hours to the Wichita VA Hospital to get a new pair of glasses, a 
distance of about 260 miles, and it doesn't make sense to him because 
his community's optometrist is just across the street.
  No, it doesn't make sense to any of us. Lack of access to VA care is 
a problem felt around the country by veterans living in rural America. 
Veterans who live in rural America are one in five of the veterans 
enrolled in the health care system. Rural veterans face unique 
challenges like long drives to VA facilities, bad weather, and lack of 
specialists. Limited access to VA care too often means rural veterans 
simply forgo the care and treatment they need. Studies have found that 
rural veterans are in poorer health than their urban counterparts. A 
policy change is needed. It isn't right to penalize some veterans 
because of where they live. It is time to provide these veterans the 
health care benefits they have earned and that have been promised to 
them.
  I have introduced the Rural Veterans Access to Care Act with the goal 
of ending these disparities in access. This legislation requires the VA 
to contract with qualified outside health providers to give our most 
underserved veterans more options to receive care. Rather than 
traveling long distances to reach VA facilities or deciding not to make 
the trip at all, these veterans would be given the choice to receive 
care closer to home at their local hospital or their community clinic 
or their local physician's office. Additionally, the VA would be 
required to fill prescriptions written by outside doctors to eligible 
veterans.
  To meet the needs of highly rural veterans, the VA would contract and 
partner with community physicians as well as local hospitals, community 
health centers, and rural health clinics. These providers already 
supply high-quality care to America's rural population, and yet their 
services are denied to America's veterans.
  Since our Nation's founding, rural communities have always responded 
to the Nation's call. Today, 44 percent of our country's military 
recruits come from rural America. When these rural soldiers return home 
from war, our Nation must be prepared to care for them. Let's take 
advantage of the successes of existing rural health infrastructure in 
order to meet the unmet needs of America's rural veterans.
  For our elderly World War II veterans, our young soldiers returning 
from Iraq and Afghanistan, and those who served in all of the conflicts 
in between, this is a commonsense and life-saving approach that our 
Nation owes its rural veterans.

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