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VETERANS HEALTH CARE, CAPITAL ASSET, AND BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT ACT OF 2003
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| November 21st, 2003 |
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Mr. MILLER of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I will not say many of the things that a lot of my colleagues have already said on the floor today, but I do want to say thank you to our chairman, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), our subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Simmons), and certainly the ranking member. In fact, I thank all the members of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs on both sides of the aisle.
I want to say that the first district of Florida probably includes some of the most striking examples of access to care challenges that this country ever had. I have almost 100,000 veterans that live in the Panhandle. All of them are eligible to receive health care through the VA. Pensacola ranks in the top 10 in veteran populations in the Nation, and Fort Walton Beach tops that list.
Despite these numbers, our community-based outpatient clinic in Pensacola treats twice the number of Panhandle veterans than it was designed to do. Veterans in Fort Walton and farther east must travel to the other side of Eglin Air Force Base, which spans over 700 square miles in the middle of my district, in order to even reach the Pensacola clinic. For VA in-patient care, all of my patients must go to Biloxi, Mississippi, a trip upwards of 200 miles for some of my residents.
I would say in VA's budget submission for this fiscal year, the Pensacola facility was described as ``obsolete.'' This description does not even come close to painting an accurate picture of the crowded and totally inadequate facility. The time to move forward on providing a new facility is now, and this bill sets the pace.
I am proud that the Naval Hospital Pensacola has been ahead of the bell curve on the implementation of co-sharing agreements, as has the 96th Medical Group at Eglin Air Force Base. Whereas both facilities have the potential to set the pace for the rest of the Nation in regards to issues of VA and DOD resource-sharing, the CARES Commission report acknowledges this in its ``highest priority project request'' for land to build a replacement Pensacola clinic at the Naval Hospital Pensacola, with the Navy to provide contract hospitalization for medicine and surgical care.
This bill, Mr. Speaker, underscores the solidarity amongst all stakeholders in this endeavor. I would say that nothing makes me prouder than to represent the veterans of northwest Florida, and I urge my colleagues to support S. 1156.
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There are no Floor Speechess to be displayed for this month.
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