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Today, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs held an oversight hearing to discuss veteran suicide prevention. 

Below are Ranking Member Rep. Phil Roe's, M.D. (R-Tenn.) opening remarks:

Opening Remarks As Prepared for Delivery:                               

Tonight’s topic is the most important, most confounding, and most heartbreaking one that we will discuss in this Committee.

While suicide is a tragedy no matter where it happens, it is particularly painful when it occurs on the grounds of a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facility with help mere feet away.

The last several weeks have seen four incidents of suicide on VA campuses - including one just last night in Cleveland.

My heart goes out to the surviving family members and friends of each of those veterans and I want them to know that they are foremost on my mind and in my prayers this evening.

Their loved ones are part of the approximately 20 of our nation’s veterans, active-duty servicemembers, and members of the National Guard and Reserve who die by suicide each day.

That rate has remained largely the same since the late 1990’s despite two decades of sincere effort from Administrations on both sides of the political spectrum and substantial increases in funding, staffing, programs, attention, and support for mental health care and suicide prevention inside and outside of the VA healthcare system.

Since 2005 alone, funding for VA mental health care has increased 258 percent, to a high of $9.4 billion in the most recent request.

Unquestionably, too little progress has been made.

Unquestionably, a business-as-usual approach to this crisis is not sufficient.

To be clear, the tragedy of suicide is a societal one that is in no way unique to VA or to veterans.

Of the 20 suicide deaths per day among our nation’s heroes, 14 have not received VA health care in the two years preceding their deaths.

That is a clear indication that VA alone cannot solve this crisis.

I commend President Trump for issuing two Executive Orders in the last two years to rally federal, state, and local government agencies as well as non-governmental organizations around this issue.

I look forward to hearing today about how those Executives Orders are working and how their impact will be measured moving forward.

I am also looking forward to delving into an important concept that Secretary Wilkie and his team - including Dr. Stone and Dr. Franklin, who are both with us tonight - have been stressing recently and that is that suicide is not exclusively a matter of mental health.

It is quite a bit more complex than that and solving it will require nothing less than harnessing the collective efforts of every community around those in need long before a crisis point is reached.

Tonight’s hearing would be incomplete if it didn’t include a frank discussion about the role each one of us can play in our districts to stem the tragic tide of veteran suicide and about the deeper personal and societal issues such as the loss of purpose, belonging, and connection that far too many Americans - not to mention veterans - are struggling with.

Our goal should be more than just preventing suicide.

It should be helping our veterans to live a life of meaning and joy.

I would also like to caution us all - in having that discussion - to resist narratives that paint veterans as victims or the tragedy of suicide as insurmountable.

We know from research and from experience that treatment works and recovery is possible and that is the principal message that I hope everyone listening takes home with them tonight.

I am grateful to all of our witnesses and audience members for being here with us this evening and I yield back.