Third District U.S. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Skamania, testified Wednesday, Sept. 11, at a House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Health legislative hearing in support of her bipartisan Rural Veterans Transportation to Care Act.
According to a news release, In her testimony, Gluesenkamp Perez highlighted the need to ensure U.S. veterans can access the care they’ve earned and deserve to lead healthy lives, as well as explaining how transportation services “are a critical lifeline for rural veterans who in many cases already suffer from delays in scheduling appointments and losses of rural providers.”
She also highlighted the stories of veterans with whom she met earlier this month at Pacific Transit’s Veterans Connect program, which provides no-cost transportation for Pacific County veterans to their medical appointments.
After updated Census data resulted in Skamania County suddenly losing eligibility for the VA’s Highly Rural Transportation Grant (HRTG) Program, Gluesenkamp Perez introduced the Rural Veterans Transportation to Care Act to improve how the VA measures rurality and expand eligibility for rural veterans to get free transportation to healthcare facilities, according to the news release.
The legislation would restore eligibility for Skamania County, and make Cowlitz, Clark, Lewis, Thurston, Wahkiakum and Pacific counties newly eligible for HRTG grants. The Department of Veterans Affairs has expressed support for the provisions outlined in the bill, according to the release.
Nearly one in four veterans in Washington live in rural areas, and roughly 2.7 million veterans in rural areas across the country are enrolled in and rely on the VA’s health care system.
The news release stated, in July, Gluesenkamp Perez hand-delivered her letter urging the VA to reopen a Lewis County clinic to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough — along with a petition signed by more than 16,650 veterans, caregivers and Lewis County community members — after failing to hear back from the agency in February.
Gluesenkamp Perez has recovered $192,578 for constituents owed to them by the VA, according to the news release. She also co-led the bipartisan VET MEDS Act to support veterans’ access to VA-certified specialists and examiners in rural and high-need communities, which was signed into law as part of a larger Senate package in October 2023.
“Almost exactly one year ago today, I heard from one of my counties in my district that they had just received notice from the VA that they were no longer eligible for the VA Highly Rural Transportation Grant Program,” Gluesenkamp Perez testified before the subcommittee.
“The county had been operating a van for the purposes of transporting veterans to Department of Veterans Affairs facilities to receive medical care — free of charge — since 2014. Over the years, this service has proven essential to veterans seeking essential care, to things like chemotherapy and critical surgeries, treatment for heart conditions. In 2022 alone, the van made approximately 300 trips and transported between 40 and 60 veterans. However, the definition of eligibility for these grants is set in statute as fewer than seven residents per square mile. Skamania County learned that, due to new Census data and migration changes that happened during the pandemic, that our rural county was no longer considered rural enough. Now we are at 7.15 residents per square mile, and with just one week’s notice, we lost transportation funding.”
She testified that she had sent a letter to McDonough in October urging the VA to fill transportation gaps for rural veterans and work with Congress to redefine highly rural. In a reply earlier this year, the department expressed support for the provision outlined in the Rural Transportation to Care Act, according to the news release.
The release stated that the bipartisan bill would help more veterans living in rural areas get transportation to VA or VA-authorized healthcare facilities. The bill would also expand eligibility to both rural and highly rural counties, as well as tribal organizations, she testified. The legislation would increase the maximum funding amount so transportation services could keep pace with inflation, according to the release.
“It is our responsibility to ensure that our nation’s heroes are well-supported after returning home and can access the benefits they have earned and deserve,” Gluesenkamp Perez testified. “Just last week, I was visiting with veterans in Pacific County about how vital these kinds of transportation services are, and they’re literally life or death. People who have been waiting for appointments for 18 months can lose an appointment if they’re just 10 minutes late or 15 minutes late to their appointment, setting [their care] back 10 months. Access to professional, reliable transportation is critical to deliver lifesaving care to our veterans."
“As veterans across my district and the country face dramatic reductions in lifesaving services, it is our duty to make sure they are not left behind. This bipartisan bill won’t only restore critical healthcare transportation services for Skamania County veterans, but will also newly expand eligibility to make sure more veterans in rural areas around the country have a safe and reliable way to get to their appointments and receive the care they deserve.”
