Research - Rehabilitation - Re-Employment

Sgt. Shaft 07/16/2001

Dear Sgt. Shaft:
As a Member of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and Chairman of the House Rural Health Care Coalition, I wanted your readers to have an opportunity to know more about what their Congress is doing this year with respect to important veterans issues. I appreciate what you do in providing a forum for the expression of these ideas.

As you know, I am the new Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health of the Veterans Committee. In the spirit of continuity, Cliff Stearns, our former Chairman, is serving this year as the Subcommittee's Vice Chairman. I understand that the Blinded American Veterans Foundation, with which you are affiliated, honored Cliff this year as a leader in veterans health care. Excellent choice! Cliff was a great Chairman of Health and deserves this well-earned recognition.

Among its responsibilities, the Health Subcommittee protects veterans' quality of care, oversees the all-important Veterans Affairs health care system, and monitors VA's activities. One of my continuing commitments, not only in Kansas but nationwide, is to make sure that veterans receive comparable care at all VA facilities, irrespective of location -- care that is of the highest quality available anywhere. A veteran's choice of where to live should have no bearing on the quality or the quantity of VA health care made available.

The strong connection I feel with my home state of Kansas is what motivates me to fight for needed improvements in VA health care and rural health care. I try to always keep an open door and an open heart for those I represent, our veterans and all rural Americans.

As one important focus, the subcommittee will hold hearings on rural health care for veterans. I particularly want to know more about current activities of VA in tele-medicine and how VA can use this new technology t bring better diagnostic and therapeutic care to veterans who should not be forced to travel to get vital health benefits when they need them.

Recently, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced its latest locations for sixteen new VA Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOC). These new clinics include one in Salina, Kansas. 13,400 veterans in and around Salina will now be able to receive care close to home in Salina rather than having to drive to the VA hospital in Wichita and Topeka. The CBOC clinics play an important role in delivering quality VA health car in rural areas. Given the pace of technological innovation in health care delivery systems, I believe that use of tele-medicine in these CBOCs is one way to address some of the need in rural areas for our fellow citizens - former soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines - to access specialists without having to make long journeys to the big cities. I want to explore how VA decides where to put these clinics and the kinds of services available. I intend to monitor this program closely to ensure that rural veterans get the share of VA's health care resources.

The Subcommittee will also be renewing our call for "Medicare Subvention" for veterans, a proposal that has already been enacted into law for military retirees but has yet to be approved for veterans in the VA. Subvention will give Medicare-eligible veterans greater choice of health care services and will enable them to direct at least some of the Social Security taxes they paid to the VA.

Shaft, I am hopeful for a productive year for veterans in the US Congress. I appreciate the opportunity to share my thoughts with your readers regarding my new role as Chairman of a Subcommittee of Congress that is very important to all of America's veterans, rural and urban alike. Best wishes.

Jerry Moran, Member of Congress
Chairman, Subcommittee on Health
Committee on Veterans' Affairs

Dear Mr. Chairman:
I want to congratulate you on your new veterans' health care initiatives, making sure that all vets are receiving quality health care. I ditto your interest in tele-medicine and how VA can use this technology, and other technology, to bring better diagnostic and therapeutic care to veterans who should not be forced to travel to get vital health benefits when they need them. 

Additionally, I applaud you and Congressman Bob Filner (D-CA) for your interest in ScriptTalk, a product from En-Vision America, Inc., that allows individuals who have difficulty reading their prescription labels a better way to manage their own medication regimens. In your letter to Department of Veterans Affairs Under Secretary for Health Thomas L. Garthwaite, M.D., you and Rep. Filner stated that this product was tested in the Central Blind Rehabilitation Center and Pharmacy Service at the Edward Hines, Jr., VA Hospital, using six randomly selected patients. Their remaining vision ranged from total blindness to significant remaining vision. These subjects were prescribed between 5 and 12 medicines each. Although the study indicated that more work on the delivery system is still needed, the overall use of the ScriptTalk, or similar systems, could prove to be beneficial in the Blind Rehabilitation Centers, as well as with geriatric patients who have difficulty reading small print, and other veterans identified as sight impaired. Your letter states that, at Hines, the system was easily integrated into the automated pharmaceutical benefits management system. I'm glad you recommended to Dr. Garthwaite that this project warrants further review in considering how the VA might make this technology more widely available to veterans.

Shaft Kudos
The 260th Artillery Association's 29th Reunion is October 13 at Andrews Air Force Base, marking the D.C. National Guard's 60th and 50th anniversary of the call-up for WWII and Korea. Those interested should contact E. Wayne Brizendine, 4806 Wyaconda Road, Rockville, MD 20852; phone (301) 770-7878 or e-mail ewbriz@juno.com.

Send letters to Sgt. Shaft, c/o John Fales, P.O. Box 65900, Washington, D.C. 20035-5900; fax to 301-622-3330; call 202-462-4430 or email sgtshaft@bavf.org.

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