Senator Gibson, who chairs the state Senate Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, Space, and Domestic Security wants less red tape and more access to health care for vets
In a letter to the newly confirmed Secretary of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, state Senator Audrey Gibson is urging David Shulkin to retain the health care of military veterans as his top priority.
“As you may know, with over 1.5 million veterans, the state of Florida is home to the third largest veteran population in the nation,” wrote the Jacksonville Democrat, who chairs the state Senate’s Committee on Military and Veterans Affairs, Space, and Domestic Security in a letter sent earlier this month to Secretary Shulkin. “It is the utmost concern of the Committee that Florida’s veterans receive the quality health care promised to them by their government in return for their honorable military service.”
Top among Senator Gibson’s recommendations are reducing the scheduling and wait times for medical services, the delay in veterans’ access to care through the Choice Program, and a more expeditious examination of the prevalance of PTSD among warriors returning home from deployment.
A holdover from President Barack Obama’s administration and the VA’s former undersecretary of health, Secretary Shulkin was unanimously confirmed by the full U.S. Senate in mid-February. He has vowed not only greater transparency and better care access, but opposition to any attempts to privatize the critical federal agency.
