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Rep. Moran [R-KS1]: 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...

Record Text

Chair: Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moran) is recognized for 5 minutes.

Rep. Jerry Moran [R-KS1]: 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.