Joe Cunningham: “I take a back seat to no one as far as veterans and trying to help them, whether it is FEHBP, subvention, or other…”

“I take a back seat to no one as far as veterans and trying to help them, whether it is FEHBP, subvention, or other programs. I fought for their COLAs and I fought for their funding. I am a veteran. I am a combat veteran. I have health care needs because of that combat. And I understand the need. I have gone into hospitals where a general running a military hospital said, ``Duke, I'm losing two or three veterans a week from World War II, and they're not getting the health care that they need.'' And I understand what the gentleman is doing probably more than anybody in this room. My veterans in San Diego wrote the subvention bill, the original one. I fought it through this body and through the Senate, and the White House limited it to a pilot program. And the whole idea of it was that you could use Medicare at a hospital, a military hospital where you do not have large overheads. I am giving you the other side of your position, which is good, because I am trying to show you where my heart is. That because you do not have to pay for illegal aliens and children born out of wedlock and all of those things at a military hospital, you actually save Medicare dollars. I do not think they take that into account when they talk about, my side, talking about the expanded cost of it. We save Medicare dollars. It costs the military, but there needs to be a change in that. But I want to tell you something. TRICARE, when you talk to the veterans is a Band-Aid.”