The Subcommittee on Health will now come to order.  I would like to thank everyone for attending this hearing.  I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to New Mexico State University for their hospitality in hosting this hearing.  Today’s hearing would not have been possible without the efforts of Mr. Teague.  I thank Mr. Teague for his work as a tireless advocate for veterans and for inviting us here today to Las Cruces to learn about the local needs of veterans in New Mexico.

Today’s hearing will cover a wide range of issues to ensure that our veterans in New Mexico and across the U.S. receive the essential services and benefits that they need and deserve.  Among the issues that we will discuss today are homeless veterans, mental health, reintegration, outreach, and health care for rural veterans. 

In this Congress, we’ve held several hearings on these issues.  For example, my Health Subcommittee held a hearing on rural veterans in March of 2009 and an outreach hearing in May of 2009.  Under the leadership of Chairman Filner, we also held a hearing on homeless veterans in June of 2009 and I am happy to share that the House passed H.R. 4810, a comprehensive bill to help homeless veterans, on March 22, 2010.  H.R. 4810 included provisions from two important bills that Mr. Teague introduced.  H.R. 2504, which increased funding for the Grant and Per Diem program and H.R. 3906, which increased funding for supportive services for low-income veteran families in permanent housing.  This year, in 2010, the Full Committee also held a roundtable to discuss issues facing rural veterans in January and another roundtable on reintegration issues this past March.

We have learned a lot from the series of hearings and roundtables that we held in Washington D.C.  However, these issues are of such magnitude that they warrant further discussion here today.  I look forward to hearing the testimonies of our witnesses and learning about the unique challenges facing our veterans in New Mexico.