Nomination of Peter Joseph Kadzik to be an Assistant Attorney General - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, what the recent crisis at the Veterans' Administration has taught us is that the cost of war does not end when the last shots are fired and the last missiles are launched. The cost of war continues until the last veteran receives the care and benefits that he or she has earned on the battlefield. In other words, the cost of war is very expensive. It is expensive in terms of human life, in terms of human suffering, and in terms of financial commitment.

The cost of war in Iraq and Afghanistan alone is almost 7,000 dead. The cost of war is some 200,000 men and women coming home from those wars with post-traumatic stress disorder or traumatic brain injury. The cost of war from Iraq and Afghanistan is that many of our veterans have come home without arms or legs or eyesight or without their hearing. The cost of war is tragic suicides taking place all over this country from people who have returned from war.

The cost of war is veterans coming home unable to find jobs and get their feet back on the ground financially. The cost of war is high divorce rates and the impact that family stress has on kids. The cost of war is widows suddenly having to start their life anew without the person they married at their side.

Two weeks ago Senator McCain and I hammered together a proposal to deal with the current crisis at the VA, and I thank him very much for understanding the need to move forward expeditiously.

Last Wednesday this legislation passed the Senate by a vote of 93 to 3, and I thank all of the Members in both political parties for voting for this bill. I thank them for understanding that we need to continue moving forward on this legislation as quickly as possible and in a nonpartisan way.

A recent VA audit revealed that more than 57,000 veterans are waiting to be scheduled for medical appointments. They are in facilities where the waiting lists are much too long. That, to my mind, is clearly an emergency situation.

I thank all of those Senators who not only voted to pass this bill but, perhaps more importantly, voted to pay for this bill through emergency funding. I could not agree more with Senator McCain when he said:

If there is a definition of emergency, I would say that this legislation fits that. It is an emergency. It is an emergency what is happening to our veterans and the men and women who have served this country. And we need to pass this legislation and get it in conference with the House as soon as possible.

I fully agree with Senator McCain's sentiment. Madam President, 93 Senators--in a strong bipartisan showing--agreed with Senator McCain and me that this is an emergency, that veterans must get the quality health care they need, and they must get it in a timely manner. We need to provide the funding the VA needs and do it in an expeditious way.

Needless to say, the bill we passed in the Senate is a compromise. It is not the bill I know Senator McCain would have written alone, and it is surely not the bill I would have written if I could have had the power to write it alone. It is a compromise that was hammered out in good faith, which is something we need to see more of in this body.

What this bill does is address the immediate crisis facing the VA of long waiting periods and makes certain that as soon as possible, the veterans of our country get the high-quality care they need and they get it in a timely fashion. That is what our veterans deserve.

I will briefly touch on some of the major provisions in the bill. This bill allows for 26 major medical facility leases, which means improved and expanded care for veterans in 17 States and Puerto Rico. There has been some disagreement about a 27th facility located in Oklahoma. That facility was in the original bill I introduced, and I supported its inclusion in final passage.

This bill also provides for the expedited hiring of VA doctors and nurses and $500 million targeted to hire those providers with unobligated funds. No medical program can provide quality care in a timely manner if those programs do not have an adequate number of doctors, nurses, and other medical providers.

This bill will provide an opportunity for the VA to immediately increase capacity within their system. It will provide an expedited hiring authority to allow VA to quickly hire doctors and nurses, which is not the case right now. One of the problems with the VA is they have a very complicated process. It takes a whole lot of time, and they often lose their applicants because it takes such a long period of time. We need to change that, and this bill does that.

Right now there are 741 vacancy announcements for physician positions at VA on USAJOBS. My understanding is that is a flaw. In fact, the real number of physicians needed is significantly greater than that. In Phoenix alone there have been estimates that up to 500 new providers in that one facility alone--and those are doctors, nurses, and other health care providers--are needed if the veterans in Phoenix are going to have timely care.

Further, what our legislation also does is say to veterans around the country that if they cannot get into a VA facility in a timely manner, they will be able to get the care they need outside of the VA. In my view, what we need to do is hire those doctors, nurses, and supporting staff so veterans who come to the VA can get timely care there, but if they cannot get to a VA facility, this legislation is very clear in stating that they can go to private doctors, community health centers, Department of Defense bases or Indian health care facilities.

The goal is to give veterans a wide option to access care in a timely manner through providers in their communities. If the VA is unable to accommodate those veterans, they are going to go outside of the VA and get timely health care, and that is a very important provision in this bill.

This bill also says veterans who live 40 miles or more from a VA facility--if they choose--also have the option of seeking care outside of the VA. For those veterans living in very rural areas--and I have talked to one Senator who indicated that in some cases a veteran has to travel hundreds and hundreds of miles to get VA health care--this provision will also be very important.

The bill also addresses a major crisis we have seen in the military; that is, the tragedy and the outrage of sexual assault. Our bill will significantly increase VA services for those veterans who experienced sexual assault in the military.

This bill also deals with an issue--where there is widespread support across partisan lines--instate tuition for all veterans at public colleges and universities. This bill also importantly provides that surviving spouses--mostly wives who have lost their husbands in battle--will also be eligible for the post-9/11 GI bill, and that is exactly the right thing to do.

This bill also establishes commissions to provide help to give the VA in terms of improving schedule capabilities and capital planning. These are areas, frankly, where the VA has not been strong. They can use private sector and expert help so they can improve their scheduling capabilities and their ability to do capital planning.

Finally, and importantly, this bill gives the Secretary the authority to immediately fire incompetent employees or those who have falsified or manipulated data in terms of waiting periods. All of us have been outraged that people have intentionally manipulated data to make it appear that veterans have been getting timely care when that was not the case.

Our bill gives the Secretary the ability to fire those employees and other incompetent employees and it also provides due process. I think that is important because I do not want to see the VA politicized. I don't want to see a President coming into office with a new Secretary firing 300 or 400 top-level supervisors. We do not want to see the VA politicized. We want the best people regardless of their political views.

The House of Representatives passed legislation last week which covers a lot of the same ground the Sanders-McCain bill covers, and I am very confident that in working with chairman Jeff Miller and ranking member Mike Michaud, we can bridge the differences and send the President a bill he can sign in the very near future.

I think that is what the American people want. That is what Members of Congress want. We do not want this to drag on and on and on. We want to get this bill done quickly.

Finally, I did want to say a word to the 300,000 employees who work at the VA. These last several months have been a tough time for many of them. The truth is the overwhelming majority of the people who work at the VA are hard-working, honest, and serious people. In fact, many of them are veterans themselves. I know many others who work at the VA look at what they do not as a job--a 9-to-5 job--but they look at it as a mission. They feel very seriously that our veterans have to get the best health care possible, and they are doing their best to make that happen. I thank them very much for that.

Over and over, I hear from my State of Vermont and from across the country that once veterans get into the VA health care system, the care is good. That is not just my view; it is the view of virtually all of the major veterans organizations and independent studies that compare VA health care with care in the private sector.

In the State of Vermont some 98 percent of veterans get appointments into the system within 30 days. That is good, but it needs to be better in Vermont and throughout this country. The goal must be the highest quality care possible and getting people their appointments in a timely manner.

Let me read, interestingly enough, a poll that just came out from Gallup today. It was published today, and it was commissioned by MarketWatch from the Wall Street Journal. The interesting paragraph here--they polled some 42,000-plus Americans regarding their satisfaction with health care in America. Let me quote what the article says:

Despite recent troubles with veterans not having access to prompt medical appointments, current and former military personnel are the most satisfied with their health care, as 77% expressed contentment. That was the highest satisfaction rate among those broken out by method of coverage.

Veterans, obviously, get their health care in other ways--not just through the VA--but it is important to recognize that for many, many veterans the health care they are getting is good, and they appreciate that.

Let me conclude by saying our job right now--and I think the American people are with us on this virtually 100 percent--is to make sure those men and women who have put their lives on the line to defend us--they are now asking us to defend them, to make sure they get the health care and the benefits to which they are entitled. My goal is to see that we move this legislation as quickly as possible. I hope by tomorrow we will have named conferees to the conference committee. My hope is we can get this legislation on to the President's desk as soon as we possibly can.

It is one thing to give heartfelt speeches about how much we love and respect veterans; it is another to act, and now is the time for action. The Senate and House committee staffs have already begun preliminary discussions. My understanding is the House conferees will be named tomorrow. I believe we will do the same here in the Senate. My job and what I intend to work on as hard as I can is to make sure we pass strong legislation as soon as we possibly can and have the President sign that legislation.

With that, I suggest the absence of a quorum.

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