Improving healthcare services for our veterans and seniors continues to be one of my top priorities.

In our 7th Congressional District several initiatives and projects, including major medical facilities to serve our veterans are making promising progress. Construction on the new VA Medical Center in Orlando is on schedule, with Phase 1, Foundations and Superstructure, to be completed by the end of this year and opening of the hospital in August of 2012.  

The new 120 bed Clyde E. Lassen VA nursing facility in St. Johns County is also on schedule to open September 2010. In Putnam County a new VA clinic at the Palatka Mall will open its doors to veterans August 2010. These new VA medical facilities are important because they will help lessen the pressure from the overstressed clinics and nursing homes in the surrounding area.

Several years ago I authored and passed legislation to expand veteran’s preference in securing employment. Stars and Stripes newspaper quoted the Chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee at that time, calling my bill “…perhaps the most important improvement in veteran’s preference in more than 50 years.”  Currently my efforts are directed toward providing our veterans and returning military with better access to credit and financial programs and opportunities to compete for transportation and infrastructure jobs and businesses.  Many of our veterans have been hit hard by the economic downturn, and I remain committed to assisting them in every way possible. I am working on legislation to ensure that opportunities for business and employment under federal contracts expand veteran’s preferences.

Federal funding for veterans programs will be increased for the new fiscal year, which begins on October 1.  Reducing the backlog in processing veteran’s benefits claims is one of my top priorities. Congress is considering a VA request for a 27% increase in funding to pay for processing of claims. With this funding the department hopes to increase the speed of processing and also fund an expected increase in claims. Increasing veteran’s medical care funding is also important, particularly as our veteran population ages. The proposed FY2011 budget includes a $3.7 billion increase in veteran’s medical care funds over the previous year.  These additional funds will help will help provide comprehensive health care services to veterans in a timely and convenient manner. 

Knowing that the concurrent receipt benefit, which is eligibility for retirement and VA disability compensation, is important to our veterans, we have worked for a number of years to ensure that all of our disabled military retirees who are entitled to disability compensation are not penalized by having their retirement pay reduced. I have consistently cosponsored legislation to correct this inequity.  In 2004 Congress approved a significant change in law and provided $22 billion to allow military retirees with a 100% disability rating to receive full retirement and disability payments. Congress has also authorized a concurrent receipt program for military retirees with a disability rating of 50% or higher to be phased in over ten years.  The proposed phase-in for retirees will include the entire VA disable population included by 2014.  While some progress has been made to end this unfair offset, we will continue working to correct this inequity and grant full concurrent receipt to all disabled veterans.