Features : Senate passes Tester’s veterans health care bill : Sidney Herald, Sidney, Montana

Senate passes Tester’s veterans health care bill

Published on Tuesday, November 24, 2009 3:07 PM MST

All veterans living in Montana and across rural America will get better health care thanks to landmark legislation by U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., that cleared the U.S. Senate last week.

Tester wrote the bipartisan Rural Veterans Health Care Improvement Act, which unanimously passed the Senate as part of a larger veterans bill. Tester’s vote for the measure was his 1,000th vote in the U.S. Senate.

Before the vote, Tester – Montana’s only member of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee – called on the Senate to “live up to the promises made” to the nation’s veterans.

“I’m going to boil it down to one reason,” Tester said. “We promised it to all men and women who served in our military.”

Tester also urged his colleagues to recognize the unique challenges facing rural veterans.

“Montana is a rural state, which means all 100,000 veterans there are rural veterans,” Tester said. “Many of them live in frontier communities. Sadly, that means they have a tougher time getting the health care they earned.”

Tester’s Rural Veterans Health Care Improvement Act will strengthen health care for rural veterans by:

• Locking in the current travel reimbursement rate for disabled veterans who travel to a VA facility for health care at 41.5 cents per mile. Tester worked with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) over the past two years to raise the rate from 11 cents per mile.

• Authorizing the VA to award grants to veterans service organizations that drive veterans to their medical appointments.

• Directing the VA to establish American Indian health coordinators to improve care in areas with high American Indian veteran populations.

• Authorizing the VA to work with community mental health centers to provide mental health services to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans in areas where the VA is unable to provide mental health care.

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