During a Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday, Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI) voiced her objections to the Veterans' ACCESS Act, which was supported by Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the ranking member of the committee, as well as Republicans.
00:00Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be voting against the Access Act, not because I don't think that veterans deserve mental health services.
00:09They certainly do. But moving us toward privatizing VA care is not the way to go.
00:16And I do appreciate, Mr. Chairman, your efforts and that of the ranking member to continue working on this bill,
00:23because the idea is and the commitment should be that veterans should receive care within the VA system.
00:30We should be focusing on providing this kind of care and increasing the capacity of the VA system to provide all levels of care.
00:41So it's not just the mental health services that the veterans need.
00:44There are all kinds of specialty services that the veterans need.
00:48And are we going to send them into the community to receive this care or are we going to focus on recruiting the medical professionals within the VA system,
01:00paying them enough, retaining them, doing all those things that truly will make VA care the kind of care that our veterans are relying upon.
01:09So it's for that reason, not because I don't think that you and the ranking member are not going to be focused on what we need to be doing,
01:18but I do have a concern about moving VA care toward privatization.
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