The Subcommittee on Health will now come to order.  I would like to thank everyone for attending this hearing, especially the veterans who are with us today.  I would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the Bedford County Board of Supervisors for their hospitality in hosting this hearing. 

Today’s hearing would not have been possible without Mr. Perriello’s tireless advocacy for our veterans living in Virginia.  He is a welcomed member of the Subcommittee on Health for Veterans’ Affairs who brings new energy and enthusiasm for tackling the unique challenges facing our rural veterans.  

As a Congressman who represents rural communities of Maine, Mr. Perriello and I have a shared interest in ensuring that our rural veterans receive the care that they deserve.  Our veterans, whether they live in rural Maine or rural Virginia, face common challenges.  Most notably, access to care is an issue where veterans live many miles and hours from the closest VA medical facility.  Given this challenge, it is important that our rural veterans have access to such tools as telemedicine, telehealth, and the VA’s new pilot program to provide enhanced contract care.   

This year, we held several important hearings focused on rural health care.  For example, this past April, we held a hearing on VA’s implementation of the enhanced contract care pilot program.  To our surprise, we learned of VA’s plans to create a pilot within a pilot program, where only those veterans in select communities within VISNs 1, 6, 15, 18, and 19 would have access to enhanced contract care.  At this hearing, we clearly conveyed Congress’ intent for VA to implement this pilot program VISN-wide.  Unfortunately, we were just informed a few days ago that VA does not plan on honoring Congress’ intent and will only implement the pilot program in select locations within the five VISNs.  I am deeply concerned by these recent developments and look forward to hearing from the VA today on this issue.

Next, in June of this year, we held a hearing on innovative wireless health technology solutions as a way to help overcome rural health care challenges.  At this hearing, we heard from the Director of the Rural Network Development of the University of Virginia Health System, who provided a poignant testimony on the unique needs of the veterans of Appalachia and the importance of innovations in telemedicine and wireless mobile health sensors and applications.

Again, I’d like to thank Mr. Perriello for inviting us here today and I appreciate this opportunity to hear directly from our veterans of central and southern Virginia about their local health care needs.  I look forward to the testimonies of our witnesses today.