Motion to Instruct Conferences on H.R. 3230, Pay Our Guard and Reserve Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

The House has just finished its rollcall votes for this week. With the conference committee at an impasse on H.R. 3230, the Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act, hope is fading that any legislation will be enacted this summer to address the urgent needs at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This is truly shameful, and as an American, I think this is shameful. It is beyond me to understand why our legislative branch of government cannot get this done.

It is true that this body has taken some modest steps toward improvements, like allowing veterans to seek care at non-VA providers when they cannot get medical appointments. I have supported that effort. That is fine where private sector health providers are available, but for elderly veterans in rural areas, where travel is difficult and costly, where physician shortages and medically underserved areas are abundant, like in southern West Virginia, that doesn't help much.

My State's VA facilities need funding to hire doctors--lots of them. We need primary and specialty care providers and mental health specialists. We need the resources to train and recruit health professionals and to pay them competitive salaries.

Our VA health providers, many of them veterans themselves, have a unique understanding of our veterans' needs. That expertise cannot be duplicated in the private sector.

The VA health system is designed to take care of elderly veterans with special needs. It is designed to treat combat wounds, physical and psychological--something not commonly seen in the private sector.

The VA health system is designed so that doctors can build long-term relationships with their patients and can build expertise in illnesses unique to veterans. Clearly, a Vietnam veteran who is suffering from exposure to a toxic substance like Agent Orange could expect to find a greater depth of knowledge and experience with the particular infirmities from the VA than from a private sector facility.

My State needs VA doctors. We need VA specialty care providers. We need VA facilities.

The veterans bill in conference can provide relief to our veterans in need of care, but it remains stuck in conference, frustratingly hung up in partisan politics.

When it comes to the shortage of health providers in general, that is not a local problem affecting only my State. The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates a nationwide doctor shortage of more than 91,500 physicians by the year 2020. The shortage will grow to more than 130,000 by 2025.

The impact is most severe in rural States, so any notion of private sector medical care serving as a backstop to the VA is completely wrongheaded.

This is not a new problem either. We all know it has been projected going back years, before this administration, before the Affordable Care Act, to the Bush administration and beyond.

Baby boomers are getting older. Doctors are retiring. More patients require specialized and extended care.

We, this Congress, must address this crisis, and it is a crisis. But the House stands immobilized, ``frozen in the ice of its own indifference,'' as a great American President, Franklin Roosevelt once said.

So today, I am calling upon this House, I am imploring this House to put politics aside, advance the work of the ongoing conference, and get this bill done.

This motion calls for the House to recede from disagreement with section 203 of the Senate amendment relating to the use of unobligated amounts to hire additional health care providers for the Veterans Health Administration; and recede from the House amendment and concur in the Senate amendment in all instances.

I urge the House to support this motion to instruct conferees.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, America's veterans deserve the very best care our Nation can muster. The gentleman from North Carolina said it well. Many Americans have said it well. Every one of our soldiers knows it is their motto to leave no soldier behind. Therefore, we, as Americans, should have as our creed and our basic principle guiding us that we leave no veteran behind.

That prescription begins with the very best corps of physicians that we can assemble. Time alone will not heal the wounds of war that our veterans have suffered. They are our true American heroes.

We have, time and time again, mustered the budgetary resources to deploy and support our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and lands beyond, and we salute those of our Armed Forces serving as we speak for defending this great Nation of ours.

America's sons and daughters, those who have volunteered to defend our national causes, did not hesitate for an instant to go. They went. They served. They suffered. They sacrificed their good health. They gave their all.

We are proud in West Virginia, as a strong, patriotic State, to serve up there at the top of the 50 States, on a per capita basis, of our number of young men and women that answer the call of duty for all wars.

Now, the bill for war has come due; but, alas, where has all of this body's patriotic fervor gone? It appears to be buried beneath a mound of budgetary spreadsheets and handwringing about deficits, about the need to trim back, about the need to cut back on deficits.

I say this House ought to take a different course, one in which we can stand united with those who fought with meritorious service on behalf of a grateful Nation. Let us pay the medical bills of America's sons and daughters. Let us do so with dispatch. Let us hire the doctors that America's sons and daughters deserve.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a great deal about this issue over the last several months. We know it is not a new issue. We have heard that it has been going on through several different administrations, but that should not hinder us from stepping up to the plate and doing what is necessary today, not after we come back from our so-called vacation in August, but we should address it today before we go home.

So I urge that this motion to instruct conferees be accepted by this body, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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