Mr. BERRY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Texas, and I thank him for his leadership in all matters pertaining to the military and certainly to our veterans in their care, and they are entitled to the best that this country has to offer. I appreciate him, and I also appreciate the gentleman from Colorado.
He is absolutely right. This is not a partisan issue. We should do everything within our power to see that the taxpayers get a good deal, but we have an obligation to our veterans and our retired military that should not be usurped by anyone, any time, any place. They should get the best that we have.
I am amazed that we have even got to deal with this on the House floor. This should have been taken care of a long time ago, and many of us felt like it was taken care of in the Veterans Health Care Act of 1992.
But the amazing thing to me is that we would even consider giving mail order, large corporation pharmacies a huge advantage over the local retail pharmacies, especially in rural America and in the neighborhoods. This is what is going to happen if we don't put this in this final defense authorization bill.
Our veterans should be able to go to any local pharmacy that is the front line health care provider for every community. They should be able to go to those local pharmacies and take advantage of generally free services by well-trained and accomplished professionals that know them and know their health needs and know what medicine they are taking, and those retail establishments should be able to get their pharmaceuticals at the same price that DOD gets them and the same price that the mail order companies get them and be able to provide this service to our veterans.
So I am delighted to hear the gentleman from Colorado say that they have no objections. I think that is a very wise thing.
Again, I thank my colleagues on both sides of the aisle for doing good work, and let us move this forward, and let us see that our veterans get the care that they deserve, and our retired military and their families get the care that they deserve, and let us move on to the other problems that we can solve in this same way, working together for the common good.
