Yesterday, Rep. Phil Roe, M.D. (R-Tenn.) Ranking Member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs joined Rep. Mark Takano (D-Cali.), Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Cali.), Speaker of the House, Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo), Chair of the House Republican Conference, and a bipartisan group of Committee members to address veteran suicide prevention.
Below are Dr. Roe's remarks:
Transcription of Remarks as Delivered:
Thank you, Chairman.
I am a U.S. Army veteran, a physician with over 40 years of experience, and one of the great tragedies that is occurring in America today is the mental health crisis.
It spreads across, not only the VA, but across the entire society and the United States.
Whether it’s opioid addiction or mental health prices, we do indeed have a crisis in losing the number of people that we are.
I was at a staff meeting last September and asked my staff, ‘how much money did we spend in 2003 on mental health issues at the VA?’
It was about 2.3 billion.
And I said, ‘well, how much are we spending this year on mental health?’
It was about 8.4 billion.
And I said, ‘well, what’s happened to the number of veterans dying each year?’
It had not changed one bit.
So, in all of that money and resources, I said, ‘Why don’t we do something different?’
We held a roundtable last September in a bipartisan way - as the Speaker pointed out, by the way, this is an American issue not a Republican or Democrat issue.
This is an American issue.
And we looked in my state of Tennessee and the Guard leader there, General Haston, in 2012 in the first 45 days he was in charge of the Guard in our state he had four suicides.
He jumped into action and started the program there which has lowered the suicide rate in our Tennessee Guard by 69 percent.
We need to look at innovative ways like this in local communities that have been successful and [ask] can we scale these across the country.
I very much appreciate the attention that you all are bringing here, and as the Chairman said, if there is a veteran out there watching and you need help, please reach out now to someone who can help you. Additional Information:
To view the press conference it its entirety, go here.
To call the Veterans Crisis Line, dial: 1-800-273-8255 and press 1 to chat.
