Bill Clinton: “In summary, I am offering this amendment because I believe that the Draft National CARES Plan and the process used to…”

“In summary, I am offering this amendment because I believe that the Draft National CARES Plan and the process used to develop it are deeply flawed. The Plan has not adequately taken into account the impact of these proposals on long term care, domiciliary care and mental health services. The Development of Veterans Affairs needs to go back to the drawing board and develop its plan through a fair process that takes into account all relevant factors and allows veterans to fully participate in the plan's development. At this time in our nation's history, with U.S. troops bravely serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, it sends exactly the wrong message to propose such drastic changes in veterans' health care without proper thought and deliberation. Our troops are fighting overseas to defend our values and way of life. We owe it to our current and future veterans to make sure that we provide the best health care possible for them and not rush to implement recommendations that provide our veterans with less adequate health care. As a starting point, our bottom-line goal should be the delivery of high quality health care services to our veterans, delivered as efficiently as possible. Unfortunately, the hasty procedures that the Department of Veterans Affairs followed to develop these recommendations are fundamentally flawed. Veterans' health care is too important an issue to require an adherence to artificial deadlines and hasty recommendations.”