Political Quotes

“the men and women of our armed services sacrifice a great deal for this country and when their service ends they should not have to worry about retaking medical tests or jumping through bureaucratic hoops to make sure their health records are complete. We need a modern health record system, and it needs to happen without further delay. Each year 150,000 servicemembers make the transition from military service to veteran status. When a servicemember makes that change their health records should go with them and transition seamlessly from the Department of Defense to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Unfortunately, as it stands today, the two Departments operate separate health record systems that do not communicate with each other. This can cause gaps in a servicemember's health record, meaning more medical tests that lead to greater costs and an increase in the backlog of cases at the Department of Veterans Affairs. For fifteen years we have tried to fix this problem, and in the past 5 years the Departments have spent around $1 billion but we are not there yet. Recently, Secretary Hagel announced that the two Departments were abandoning the goal of creating a single health system. Instead, the Department of Defense will invest in a commercial system that will be able to communicate with the system being used by the Department of Veterans Affairs.…”