Serving our Veterans: Capitol Solutions

Press Release

For more than 200 years, in communities across the country, brave and selfless women and men have stepped up to serve our country by donning the uniform and putting their life on the line for the love of country. When these servicemembers return home, we owe them a deep debt of gratitude and so much more. In Congress, we work to make sure we are paying back that debt whenever possible.

One small way to pay back some of that debt is through my Veterans Care Fairs. The Care Fairs bring together federal, state, and local government agencies with non-government service organizations all serving veterans, creating a one-stop-shop for veterans' resources.

Many divisions of government and organizations in our communities work to serve those who have served our country, but sometimes navigating the resources available and determining if a veteran is eligible for a particular benefit can be difficult. That is why I bring these organizations to veterans in one place at the Veterans Care Fairs.

Earlier this month, I held two Veterans Care Fairs in Council Bluffs and Des Moines where nearly 40 groups serving veterans attended to help veterans and their families find the resources they need now, and may need in the future.

In Congress, I have been working with my colleagues to pass legislation removing red tape and getting veterans the services they need and deserve.

Every day, 20 veterans take their lives. When a government report showed nearly 1 in 3 calls to the Veterans Crisis Line were not being answered, I immediately went to work on a solution. I introduced the bipartisan No Veterans Crisis Line Call Should Go Unanswered Act which helped bring accountability to the Department of Veterans Affairs and improve the crisis line. I continue to keep a close eye on the crisis line through oversight, visits to call centers, and supporting further legislation to monitor the crisis line.

All veterans, whether they were discharged honorably or not, deserve emergency mental health care. When service members are discharged under other-than-honorable conditions, sometimes caused by combat stress related behavior, they are not eligible to enroll in the VA healthcare system. However, they do sometimes need help. That is why the House of Representatives passed the Veteran Urgent Access to Mental Health Care Act. This bill enables those with other-than-honorable discharges to receive critical mental health care from the VA.

When serving our country, our servicemembers suffer injuries which sometimes leave them permanently disabled. They rely mostly on the VA. In the House we passed, H.R. 3562, which brings efficiencies to the VA by building upon an existing program to provide the best in-home care to make a veteran's life better.

In much of rural America, it can be difficult for veterans to get to a physical location to receive needed help. That is why the VA has been expanding its use of telemedicine. Last year, the VA spent over $1.2 billion to provide telemedicine services to more than 700,000 veterans. The House passed the Veterans E-Health and Telemedicine Support Act of 2017. This bill removes the restriction on VA providers practicing across state lines. This arcane rule hampered the expansion of telemedicine which veterans in rural areas desperately needed and deserved.

These are just a few of the ways I am working with my colleagues to pay back the debt we owe our veterans. They stepped up when our country needed them most. Now it is our turn to step up, thank them, and make sure they are taken care of. It's just the right thing to do.

CAPITOL SOLUTIONS is a weekly report to the people of Iowa from Third District Congressman David Young. The report is a resource of information for Iowans on the issues being debated and discussed in Congress, Iowa and the nation.

David Young is the Congressman serving all the people of the sixteen counties of Iowa's Third Congressional District. He is a member of the Committee on Appropriations and Subcommittees on Agriculture, Financial Services and General Government, and Transportation, Housing and Urban Development. Congressman Young is also the founder and Chairman of the Bipartisan Congressional Task Force to Combat Identity Theft and Fraud - a group of dedicated legislators working towards commonsense solutions to protect all Americans from hackers, scammers, thieves and fraudsters.

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