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Veteran Emergency Medical Technician Support Act of 2016

Floor Speech

Date: May 11, 2016
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Veterans Health and Health Care

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Mr. KINZINGER of Illinois. I appreciate the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, the Veteran Emergency Medical Technician Support Act will help our veterans and our communities by assisting States in reducing burdens for military medics who want to become civilian EMTs.

Emergency medical technicians are an important part of the medical workforce and, as first responders, are critical to our goal of combating the thousands of opioid overdoses each year. EMTs respond to hundreds of thousands of overdoses. In 2014 alone, EMTs responded to 240,000 calls at which naloxone was administered.

According to the Department of Labor, the demand for EMTs and paramedics is expected to increase by 33 percent by the year 2020. This expected shortage is on top of some communities that are already reporting a shortage of EMTs.

My legislation, H.R. 1818, the Veteran EMT Support Act, works to address this by helping States to streamline requirements and procedures in order to assist veterans who completed military EMT training in the Armed Forces to meet the certification, the licensure, and other requirements to become civilian EMTs.

Although some service branches train military medics to EMT national certification standards, States generally have required additional training for State licensure. This creates a barrier for servicemembers who have received some of the best EMT training and have practiced their profession on the battlefield.

The Veteran EMT Support Act is a commonsense way to help veterans transition into the civilian workforce, improve public health, and ensure communities have highly qualified, professional men and women to answer challenging emergency calls like opioid overdoses.

I thank Congresswoman Capps for her strong support and advocacy of this legislation, and I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle. I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to vote in favor of this legislation.

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