(U.S. Senate) – U.S. Senator Jon Tester, Ranking Member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, today oversaw a hearing of the Committee on the Veterans Choice Program and the Future of Care in the Community.  

The following is Tester’s opening statement, as prepared for delivery:

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I’ll get right to it: last week I held listening sessions on the Choice Program in Billings and Missoula – the veterans who attended told me that the Choice Program hasn’t improved access to care in Montana. In fact, it’s only made it worse.    

Concerns from Montana veterans are what prompted me to work on legislation that would make some much needed changes to Choice so that veterans can get more timely access to care in their own community when VA is unable to provide it.    

Thanks to the strong support and work of many of my colleagues, particularly Chairman Isakson and Senator Moran, this legislation was recently signed into law.   

However, it is no silver bullet. 

We need a dramatic revamp of VA’s community care program.  And we need to be thoughtful in our approach.

To be clear, I do not support privatization or hollowing out the VA in any form or fashion. 

Rather than just giving a veteran a card to seek care in the private sector - the path forward should be an integrated network of VA and community providers. 

In my estimation, this means VA should continue to serve as the coordinator AND primary provider of care, while the private sector fills any gaps. 

It is clear that VA provides critical and necessary services to millions of veterans who benefit from specialized care, and these services are far too important to risk outsourcing them to the private sector, especially when we don’t know if local providers can absorb veterans or provide specialized care.

To the groups and veterans here: thank you for your service and your continued advocacy on this issue. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Congress should be taking its cues from you.

What you’ve already told me is that most veterans aren’t clamoring for private sector care.  I hear that back at home, too.  There is an important role for community care, but veterans primarily want and like to get their care at VA. 

With that in mind, I would reject any proposals that would hollow out VA and impair its ability to provide care to the millions of veterans who rely upon the services it provides every day. 

Mr. Secretary, over the past few weeks, we’ve had a number of discussions about the Department’s proposals for the future of VA health care. 

In my most recent letter to you, I stressed that we need to ensure our local facilities have the resources, staffing and tools they need to serve our veterans. 

Mr. Secretary – I know this isn’t the Budget Hearing but I want to flag for you, like I did yesterday when we met, that I have real concerns about the large percentage increase for community care and the relatively small increase for in-house care at VA. 

When you come back next week I want to talk about how you and your people arrived at those numbers.  And I hope you give it to me straight because I’m not going to be the guy that’s sitting in this chair who allows the Administration to start chipping away at VA health care.

We should not reduce access to the VA because Washington isn’t staffing hospitals and clinics or because resources are being sent in the wrong direction.

Sending veterans to the private sector does not absolve the VA of its responsibility for the care and benefits that veterans receive.

The VA is just as responsible when a veteran has a bad experience at their local civilian facility as they are if that veteran was at a VA hospital.

We can’t let the VA lose oversight of the quality of care that our veterans receive, regardless of where it is.

And sending veterans into already underserved communities based on poorly designed or questionable metrics smacks of setting the VA up for privatization.

Make no mistake about it, under any of these conditions – veterans will be the ones to suffer.

I don’t want that. And I don’t think you want that either.

So, I encourage you to take what you hear today into account when putting forward your suggestions. 

This is a really important hearing – thanks to all of you for being here today.  I look forward to our discussion.