Published December 1999 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
Byrd's-Eye View By U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd Fulfilling Obligations to Our Veterans
In West Virginia, we are proud of our sons and daughters who have gone into battle to protect the freedoms and values that make America great. But the promise of lifelong health care and benefits for veterans has been too often jeopardized by funding shortfalls. Before adjourning this year, Congress approved two key measures designed to ensure the continuing availability of health care benefits to our veterans. Congress approved an appropriations bill containing $1.7 billion that I added for medical care provided by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Last spring, West Virginia veterans began contacting me with concerns that the Clinton Administration's proposed VA budget was inadequate, and that, as a result, the VA would have to cut back the health care services it provides. It was, therefore, very important to add funding to an appropriations bill. With $1.7 billion added by my two amendments, the enacted bill contained a total of $19 billion to guarantee that Americans who have served in the defense of our nation would continue to have access to the range of medical services that the VA provides. While ensuring that basic health care is available to our veterans, Congress also recognized that veterans' health care needs are changing with the times, and with those new needs in mind, Congress passed and the President signed into law, the "Veterans Millennium Health Care and Benefits Act." The aim of that legislation is to enhance extended-care services for the expanding population of aging veterans by improving access to long-term care for severely disabled veterans and broadening the V A's authority to provide nursing home care alternatives for veterans. Additionally, that legislation authorizes the VA to pay reasonable emergency care costs for services not provided in VA facilities. That new authority answers a critical need for veterans who require emergency services at a non-VA hospital or clinic. Finally, the legislation provides the VA with the ability to move toward establishing six new cemeteries across the country, something that veterans groups have been seeking for many years. Abraham Lincoln said very clearly that the nation has an obligation "to care for him that shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan." My efforts to protect medical care services at VA facilities, and the work of Congress to enhance many benefits for veterans and their families, are aimed at meeting those obligations. December 8, 1999