CONGRESS APPROVES FUNDS TO ADDRESS VETERANS HEALTH CARE SHORTFALL, DORGAN ANNOUNCES
Health care resources had languished due to Bush Administration underestimations
Friday, July 29, 2005
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) --- The Veterans Administration will receive the funding it needs to extend health care to veterans at its hospitals in North Dakota and across the country after an Interior Appropriations bill earned final passage in Congress Friday, U.S. Senator Byron Dorgan said.
Dorgan, who is Ranking Member of the subcommittee that included the legislation, said Congress approved $1.5 billion to ease current shortfalls in Veterans Administration funding. Dorgan said he hoped the funding will help the VA move forward now with plans to open clinics in Grand Forks, Devils Lake, Williston, Dickinson and Jamestown. The new clinics would ensure veterans who live far from the VA hospital in Fargo have reasonable access to health care, Dorgan said.
“Congress has done the right thing here in telling our veterans that we will keep our promise to take care of them when they return from serving their country,” Dorgan said. “Frankly, it’s heartbreaking that we’ve had veterans returning from conflict to find their benefits cut and their access to care limited. There are no two ways around it: Keeping our word to the brave men and women who risked their lives to defend our country is an obligation we must live up to.”
Dorgan helped secure the $1.5 billion in the Senate after the Bush Administration admitted in June it had severely underestimated the number of troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan who would need medical care. Though the House Majority at first opposed the effort to fully fund veterans’ health care, they agreed to the Senate’s level of funding in a conference committee on which Dorgan served.
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