Phil Roe

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I want to clarify a couple of things that have been said here today. Madam Speaker, we did work out an agreement. When I met with all of the interested parties, which I thought was our job, both the ranking member and myself did this, as we always do, we found out some issues that were there. The primary thing we have to do right now is to provide healthcare, or we will be right back to where we were in 2014, when there were waiting lists around the country and veterans dying waiting on care. Maybe not in urban America, but in rural America where I live, many of these hospitals and veterans absolutely rely on this for their health and welfare. The further they live away from a VA facility, the more they rely on Choice. Let me go over this again so that it is clear. I got into Congress in 2009. I was elected then and sworn in then. The VA was spending $93.7 billion on all VA care; that is the disability claims, healthcare, and cemeteries. In this fiscal year, that budget is going to be $186 billion, where basically the discretionary budget in this Congress has been flat, so that money has come from other places, education, environment, other places that we have invested in our veterans, which is, and I believe to this day, a good thing to be doing. We have gone, in 2001, from 224,000 people, that is not a small organization, to 370,000 people who work for the VA today. They are providing that money. I guess what I was hearing from the other side of the aisle was if we didn't have the Choice Program, the wait times would have gotten shorter. I mean, that is the reason we have the Choice Program, was the VA wasn't doing it. The fact is, they have hired people. I mentioned here just a moment ago, since 2010, when I first got here, they have hired 13,000 more nurses, 3,600 more doctors, 3,200 more physician extenders, nurse practitioners and PAs. So the VA has increased its capacity, and they have seen millions of more visits. This week, we are going to take up the VA appropriations bill. I misspoke a minute ago; I said last week. This week, we are taking up the MILCON-VA appropriations bill where we talk about those things, about the money that we are going to spend in the VA. That is going to be debated this week. This is a separate issue. This is about providing healthcare for veterans after August 15, that is 2 to 3 weeks from now, when that program will be shut off and veterans in the middle of care will not be able to get care. It is a simple vote. We can work these other things out in the next few months after this very easily. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of S. 114, as amended, a bill to authorize appropriations for the Veterans Choice Program. This bill would authorize and appropriate $2 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs' Veterans Choice Fund. Allowing the Veterans Choice Fund to run dry is not a viable option. The Choice Program has provided critical care to millions of veteran patients. In March, Secretary Shulkin testified that the expiration of the Choice Program would be a ``disaster'' for veterans. Just a few weeks ago, the Acting Under Secretary for Health reiterated that sentiment when she testified that veteran wait times would increase if the Choice Program went away. Congress created the Choice Program in response to a nationwide wait- time scandal in 2014 to increase access to care through VA community providers for veterans who either cannot access care at a VA medical facility within a timely manner or who live far away from the nearest VA medical facility. Since the Choice Program was signed into law almost 3 years ago, it has gone through many growing pains and evolved considerably. We know from a Government Accountability Office report from earlier this year that most of the veterans who use the Choice Program do so because VA does not offer the service that veteran needs. We also know that veteran demand for care through the Choice Program has never been higher, and, consequently, the remaining money in the Veterans Choice Program will run out in mid August, a few short weeks from now. We cannot allow that to happen, and with passage of S. 114, as amended today, we won't. There are allegations that providing more money for the Choice Program is inappropriate unless we also provide more money for the VA healthcare system. I fail to understand the logic of that argument. First, providing money for the Choice Program is providing money for support to the VA healthcare system. Choice is a VA program. Through it, VA patients and veteran patients are able to access care that would have otherwise have required either a long, possibly debilitating wait or an excessive travel time. Second, the idea that Congress has been pouring money into VA community care programs to the detriment of addressing VA's in-house capacity is simply erroneous. VA's bottom line has increased substantially since the turn of the century while most other government agencies have seen theirs stagnate or reduced. Madam Speaker, VA's budget has gone up four times since 2001. It has quadrupled. Two weeks ago, former Secretary Principi testified that since he left the Department in 2005 to the most current VA budget submission released in May, VA's budget increased a stunning 268 percent. That growth will likely continue, which is appropriate, given our Nation's commitment to serving her veterans. Yet, especially considering that the Choice Program is just 3 years old, the idea that Congress is focused only on growing VA's external capacity is false. That said, there are certainly priorities that remain unaddressed in the bill before us, and I am committed to continuing to work on those in the coming months. However, providing $2 billion today will ensure that the Choice Program remains funded for the next 6 months, solving our most pressing issue and preventing yet another veteran access crisis like the one that led to the creation of the Choice Program 3 short years ago while we addressed other important issues. An important point to note is that the bill's costs are paid for using the same offsets that were used in the original act creating the Choice Fund. I look forward to working with the minority, our colleagues in the Senate, and other stakeholders to charter a long-term path forward for the Choice Program and to address other needs to ensure that the VA healthcare system remains strong and stable for generations to come. I am grateful to Ranking Member Walz for his leadership and commitment in working very closely with me to come to a mutually agreeable solution today and to committing to continue to stand shoulder to shoulder in finding solutions in the months ahead. He has been a great partner. Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting S. 114, as amended, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I respect the veterans service organizations and their point of view, and I am a member of most of them. I, therefore, reached an agreement with the ranking member on a plan to fund the Veterans Choice Program for 1 year, fund the life safety maintenance issues at VA facilities, approve 28 VA clinic leases, provide the Secretary with the tools to be more competitive in attracting and retaining VA physicians, and conduct a long-overdue asset review of VA's aging facilities. When the ranking member and I briefed the VSOs on this plan and then committee members--two separate meetings--it was clear that we needed to take some time to work out the differences. There was some concern there. And I have said that is fine. I think we can take a two-phased approach. Phase one was the one we are talking about today, and we agreed on that. It is necessary to fund the Veterans Choice Program for 6 months to ensure that the veterans get needed healthcare without long drives and waits. That is exactly what we were dealing with 3 years ago. The second phase, which we would consider 6 months from now, would consider the remaining items I have talked about between the ranking member and me. During the interim, the committee would conduct open, transparent hearings on asset review and anything else--the leases or anything else--that was in that agreement. There was full transparency about this plan among committee members, which is why I found it a little disheartening now what I am hearing. The reality is, right now, we don't have an agreement from the Senate or a bill to act on, so it is time for us to act because time is growing short. There are veterans out there, Madam Speaker, that are getting chemotherapy as we speak. There are pregnant veterans who need to know if they can have their baby and have it paid for by the VA. I could go on and on. That is why we need to remove this right now. Then we would have time to work these other issues out. And just a couple of VA staffing issues. You hear the concern that VA is going to be privatized and so forth. I hear that all of the time. Well, this is what the VA has done, as far as their facilities are concerned, since 2010. I arrived here in 2009. Since then, the VA has added 3,600 physicians, almost 13,000 nurses-- and they are one of the largest employers of nurses in the country-- almost 4,000 LPNs, and over 3,200 nonphysician healthcare providers. I could go on and on. The increase in medical services has been over $10 billion since then. So there have been huge increases. And just a couple of things from the VA Secretary's editorial in USA Today: ``But as VA's community care efforts have grown, so has our capacity to deliver care in-house. The VA budget is nearly four times what it was in 2001. Since then, the Department's workforce has grown from some 224,000 employees in 2001 to more than 370,000 today, according to the Office of Personnel Management.'' That doesn't sound like an organization that is being privatized. It has grown in that capacity. ``And we're''--the VA--``delivering 3 million more appointments at VA facilities per year than we were in 2014.'' They have grown that capacity internally. In our fiscal 2018 budget, the trend continues. We are going to spend $2.7 billion more on in-house VA care compared to a $965 million increase in community care. So there is a $3 billion increase in in- house VA care versus out-of-VA care, or outside care. I think these are all good things. I think the fact that more veterans are getting care, more appointments are being made, whether they are in or out of the VA, is a good thing. But to make the argument that this is privatization is clearly not there. I would like to say that we can work these out. We need to make sure we take that anxiety away. The Secretary has clearly stated that he has to have this passed. I would simply pass it. It gives us 6 months, Madam Speaker, to work on these issues, and I am more than happy to do it. I have stated so to every organization out there. Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 114) to amend title 38, United States Code, to require the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to submit an annual report regarding performance awards and bonuses awarded to certain high-level employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs, as amended.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Obviously, this has been a robust debate about a very important issue, which is providing timely healthcare for veterans who have been waiting. The ranking member and I negotiated in good faith and put an agreement together, which fell apart this weekend. We had met basically with both the VSOs and the committee members and had an agreement to go forward. I then backed up on that agreement because I realized it wasn't a consensus, and just divided it into two. The most pressing need, Madam Speaker, is to provide healthcare, whether it is chemotherapy or obstetrical care, surgery that a veteran may need, timely visits to the doctor. In 2 to 3 weeks we are up that close, and one of the reasons is, as has been stated multiple times, the VA gave us some really bad information 2 months ago. We thought this was going to last for 6 more--8 more months before we ran out of money in this vital program for veterans. This is going to get passed. For all veterans or people out there, citizens of this country watching this, we are going to provide this for our veterans. And I might add that not all VSOs do oppose this. Many were mentioned, but many others do not oppose this legislation. I think it is critical that we get this done, Madam Speaker, get this off the table this week, signed into law, work the other part of the agreement that we had agreed to out in the next coming weeks. I will be willing to work as expeditiously as possible to get this done. Once again, I encourage all Members to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Dunn), a veteran and the author of the bill.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2781, as amended, the Ensuring Veteran Enterprise Participation in Strategic Sourcing Act. H.R. 2781 is another piece of thoughtful contracting legislation sponsored by a hardworking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Dr. Neal Dunn. This bill will make sure that all small businesses owned by veterans and service-disabled veterans are never excluded from a particular group of contracts run by the General Services Administration, or GSA. Despite Congress' efforts to give our veterans maximum opportunity in VA contracting, the system does not always work as it should. This bill fixes a loophole that has cropped up recently and makes sure veteran businesses are not inadvertently ignored when VA uses these GSA contracts. Mr. Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 2781, as amended. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time. In closing, I would certainly urge everyone to support this actionable piece of legislation. During the last 6\1/2\ months, the Veterans' Affairs Committee has been a very active committee. When we realized that our Choice Program was running short of funds, the committee, in a bipartisan way, voted to extend that. We have also realized that there are 470,000 veterans whose claims are in appeals and have not been adjudicated. We realize that program is not functioning as it should. The House acted quickly, was bipartisan. That legislation has now been passed out of the Senate VA Committee and is awaiting action by the floor. We hope to have it passed and signed into law soon. We knew that the Secretary of the VA said he had problems, that he couldn't--most VA employees are terrific. Some of my best friends work at the VA. But there are some not good employees out of the 370,000 there, and the Secretary said, to do his job, to reform the VA, he needed a bill where he could terminate poor-performing employees, and this House and Senate gave him that. The President has signed that into law. The Secretary has also moved in speeding up the electronic health record transformation into a modern off-the-shelf system. We debated on this floor, today, the Post-9/11 GI Bill update, which is a tremendous benefit for veterans, and decades from now we will look back on this debate we had on the floor, I think, with some admiration as I do. It has been a true privilege and pleasure to be on this committee and to work with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to take care of these important issues this committee has produced. It will make this promise to our veterans of this country; it will continue to produce results for them. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Bergman), a new member of our committee and chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 2749, as amended, the Protecting Business Opportunities for Veterans Act of 2017. H.R. 2749, as amended, is contracting reform legislation sponsored by my friends, General Bergman and Representative Kuster, the chairman and ranking member of our Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. This bill will help stop companies that exploit the existing contracting laws and regulations to take work away from legitimate service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses and veteran-owned small businesses. It is crucial that Federal procurement be fair and that veteran entrepreneurs actually receive the business opportunities that the law creates for them. This bill is a smart fix for a difficult problem, and I appreciate my colleagues' work on it. Mr. Speaker, I urge all Members to support H.R. 2749, as amended, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, it sounds like the gentleman who spent 2 years and didn't have anything to show for it was in the U.S. Congress, but that is another story altogether. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Indiana (Mrs. Brooks), my good friend, whom I served with on the Education and the Workforce Committee.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Rutherford), an active member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), my distinguished colleague, a senior member and vice chair of the committee.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Messer), my good friend. We have served on the Education and the Workforce Committee together since he has been here, and he is in his fourth term.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1058) to amend title 38, United States Code, to clarify the role of podiatrists in the Department of Veterans Affairs, as amended.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2006) to amend title 38, United States Code, to improve the procurement practices of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and for other purposes.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Coffman), a senior member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, a veteran of both the Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, and a great friend.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I encourage all Members to support this legislation, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 282) to amend the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to authorize spouses of servicemembers to elect to use the same residences as the servicemembers.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, today I am honored to recognize Aerojet Ordnance Tennessee (AOT) and their 81 employees in Jonesborough, Tennessee, on the delivery of their seven millionth M67 Hand Grenade body assembly in May 2017. Awarded its first M67 Hand Grenade body assembly contract from the Joint Munitions Command at Rock Island Arsenal in 2001, when it became the sole supplier of the M67 grenade body for the U.S. and Canadian governments, AOT has been producing the M67 at a high rate. Over the past 16 years, AOT has been producing almost 500,000 grenade body assemblies annually on average to support our warfighters. On the occasion of this milestone, I am proud to recognize the dedicated, hardworking employees of AOT and their achievements so far. These Tennesseans are working hard to ensure our men and women in uniform have the resources they need to carry out their missions effectively, and they deserve our sincere appreciation.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, I wish the damages did go to patients in Tennessee. They don't. The majority goes to lawyers. Mr. Chairman, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Marshall), my good friend and a fellow OB/GYN.

Mr. ROE of Tennessee. Mr. Chairman, where the subsidies were going in our State were to the lawyers, since they got over 60 percent of any medical malpractice settlement. The poor patients got less than forty cents on the dollar. Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).