Duckworth-Blackburn Bill to Improve Access to Care for Rural Veterans Passes Committee

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee (SVAC) passed bipartisan legislation introduced by combat Veteran and U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) as well as U.S. Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) that would make it easier for Veterans who live in rural areas to access the care they’ve earned. The Senators’ Improving Access to Care for Rural Veterans Act would require the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to establish agreements between its own medical centers and civilian medical facilities in rural areas, thereby strengthening available resources to make VA care more widely accessible for the nearly 3 million Veterans who live in those communities and face unique challenges to readily access the care they need.

“Far too many rural Veterans—including in Illinois—don’t have adequate access to VA care in their communities, which forces them to travel unacceptably long distances or wait prolonged periods of time to see providers to receive the care they need and have earned through their service,” said Duckworth. “The VA must ensure it’s doing everything possible to fulfill its core mission of providing timely, high-quality care to our heroes—regardless of where they live. Our bill would help ensure Veterans who live in rural communities can more easily access VA care, while reinforcing VA as the medical center home, and I’m proud it passed through committee. Now the Senate should expeditiously pass our commonsense, bipartisan bill that would enhance access to VA care for millions of rural Veterans.”

"Our rural veterans should not have to drive hours for quality care they've earned,” said Senator Blackburn. “The Improving Access to Care for Rural Veterans Act would put veterans first by ensuring they have access to high-quality and timely treatment closer to home. I’m thrilled to see this pass through committee, and I’m looking forward to its passage in the Senate, which will better support veterans in Tennessee by making the care they’ve earned more accessible.”

There are approximately 2.7 million Veterans in rural and highly rural areas enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) today, and more than half of them are aged 65 or older and require more frequent, continuous and costly care to address their complex medical conditions. Rural hospitals often lack the resources or partnerships required to give our heroes care they need, which results in rural Veterans enduring long travel times and extended wait periods to access VA care.

The Senators’ Improving Access to Care for Rural Veterans Act would address this issue by:

• Requiring the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to establish agreements between VA medical centers and rural medical facilities, with a flexible range of supported frameworks—including co-location, telehealth, leasing of space and equipment, training, care coordination and more—that allow VA to collaborate with rural facilities in a manner that best suits the unique needs of a given VA medical center system;
• Directing the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to develop a standardized 5-year, renewable waiver for VA medical centers that are unable to fulfill this requirement;
• Requiring the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to provide a briefing to Congress on implementation, as well as recurring reports on operations and performance of agreements established under this legislation.

The legislation is endorsed by AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and the National Rural Health Association (NRHA).

The full text of the legislation is available on Senator Duckworth’s website.

Duckworth and Blackburn both pushed to pass the Sergeant First Class (SFC) Heath Robinson Honoring our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, historic legislation that was signed into law in 2022 to overhaul the VA’s processes for toxic-exposed Veterans to include presumptions for several illnesses associated with burn pits and Agent Orange exposures and is helping deliver long-overdue VA healthcare and benefits across all generations of Veterans.

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