Traveling Veterans Memorial Wall
If you haven't seen the traveling Vietnam Memorial Wall, you will soon have that chance. The Wall will be coming to El Campo July 16-20, 2015, and will be set up behind Myatt Elementary School. A special Memorial Service will be held Saturday, July 18, at 10 a.m. The wall honors, among all the fallen, the 28 service members from the Wharton County area who died in Vietnam or who are still missing. 28 crosses will be placed at the base of the Wall prior to the service to honor the 28 service members. A military ID dog tag with the member's name will hang from their individual cross. Please join me in honoring our fallen heroes.
Fighting for Veterans
Last week, I began looking into holding area veterans officials accountable for not properly managing funds to ensure veterans would receive dental benefits through the remainder of the fiscal year. Several dentists in the area brought to my attention that they have been told funding for dental services through the VA is running out despite increased allocations from Congress. It is completely unacceptable that the VA is claiming they can't deliver the services America promised to those who served. I take this very seriously and will work make sure this problem is resolved. Those who have given so much for our country deserve better. If you have had any issues regarding your VA benefits, or if you know of a veteran having problems, please contact my office for assistance. I have a team of Red Tape Cutters standing by to help.
Finding a Healthcare Solution
Last week, the Supreme Court surprisingly upheld the individual subsidies in Obamacare. I strongly disagree with this ruling. Obamacare was and continues to be a bad law. This ruling does not change my resolve towards repealing and replacing Obamacare. Healthcare should focus on helping those who are sick and respecting an individual's right to make their own choice regarding healthcare for themselves and their family. That can't be done with a one-size-fits-all Obama-mandated disaster. We are five years into Obamacare and instead of seeing the benefits the President and Nancy Pelosi promised, we are struggling to clean up the mess President Obama-made -- one bill at a time.
I am a cosponsor of H.R. 1190, Protecting Seniors' Access to Medicare Act of 2015. This bill fully repeals the part of the law dealing with the 15-member unelected board that makes determinations on seniors' eligibility for care and allows Congress to remain in charge of Medicare. There is bipartisan agreement in Congress that the power to affect seniors' health care should not be concentrated in an unelected board. We should protect Medicare by implementing commonsense reforms, but those reforms should be openly debated in Congress by elected officials, not mandated by backroom bureaucrats that were appointed by the President.
Holding OPM Accountable
Last week, top officials with the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), the independent agency that manages the civil service of the federal government, admitted the attack on American's private information could extend to at least 18 million Americans -- and that is a low number from the looks of it. Background checks, social security numbers, personnel records, previous addresses, financial and debt records, banking information, mental health history, and family information of millions of Americans is now in the hands of hackers who had been snooping through the database of OPM for a year while the government uses code from the "60s to protect data. This is a clear failure by the department and another example of why the federal government needs to step up and take cyber security seriously. OPM is still not taking the matter seriously enough from the answers, or lack of, during the committee hearings last week. I am committed to working to hold these officials accountable and to protect the information of all hard working Americans.