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Crapo working to improve health care for vets |
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October 12, 2016 |
By U.S. Senator Mike Crapo
Idaho veterans and their family members have
made it clear that the Veterans Choice Program
(Choice program), created to make it easier for
veterans to get health care, does not work for
Idahoans.
To address concerns raised by Idaho veterans, I
introduced the Improving Veterans Care in the
Community Act of 2016, S. 3401, to make it
easier for the U.S. Department of Veterans
Affairs (VA) to send veterans into their local
communities for health care, to make it easier
for veterans to access this community health
care and to make it easier for veterans to
access the services they need.
S. 3401 is a direct result of Idaho veterans’
recommendations to improve their health care.
Idaho veterans have expressed that they do not
want to privatize the VA and want to maintain
and improve VA health care providers. This
invaluable input was shared through the 2014 and
2015 veterans surveys I conducted, my more than
200 statewide town meetings, constituent mail,
casework and other interactions.
The Choice program was created in the aftermath
of the 2014 wait time manipulation scandal at
the Phoenix VA. The goal of the program was to
make it easier for veterans to get health care
if they faced excessive wait times or long
travel distance to VA facilities by allowing
veterans to access private care through the
Choice program.
Unfortunately, many Idaho veterans have still
had to travel long distances for care, because
they may live near a VA facility but require a
service, such as x-rays and audiology, that the
facility cannot provide. Because these veterans
live near a VA facility, they are ineligible for
the Choice program, even though the nearest VA
facility is not able to provide that service.
S. 3401 would enable these veterans to use
services within the local community through the
following needed changes:
* Reducing delays, confusion and frustration and increasing access to
health care by ending the bureaucratic maze and
consolidating the as many as eight separate,
non-VA care service programs, including the
Choice program, into one program that would be
called the “Care in the Community Program”;
* Expanding and improving access to quality health care in the community
by allowing veterans to choose to get care in
their local communities when they face undue
travel distances to VA facilities, cannot get
needed services at nearby VA facilities,
experience excessive appointment wait times, or
have a VA doctor who feels it is in the
veteran’s best interest medically;
* Requiring the VA to educate veterans about the new “Care in the
Community Program”, what is available to them
and how it would work; and
* Directing the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and an independent
commission to study veterans services and report
directly to Congress to inform the need for
additional steps to improve veterans services.
The goal is to replace the overlapping programs
with one that is easier for veterans to use and
the VA to manage, which would result in easier
access for the Idahoans who need non-VA care,
fewer administrative hurdles for Idahoans
working at the VA and less confusion for
community health care providers working with the
VA.
One of my top priorities is ensuring that
veterans have access to the best health care
possible respectful of their commitment to our
nation.
Thank you to the many veterans, family members,
volunteers and members of service organizations
who worked on these improvements that I will
work to get enacted. The advice and feedback
from folks in the veterans community was
invaluable and helped shape this bill into
something that can really make a difference for
veterans. |
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