U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers discussed major issues affecting local veterans on Monday, Nov. 9.
Rogers, who represents Auburn in the U.S. House of Representatives, met with the Third Congressional District Veterans Affairs Advisory Council.
The council was joined by Command Sgt. Maj. Bennie Adkins, an Opelika native. Adkins was a U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret from 1956-78 during the Vietnam War era. For his service, he received the Medal of Honor, the United State's highest military award.
"I was a Green Beret when it was not nice to be a Green Beret," Adkins said.
Adkins was the special guest at Monday afternoon's council meeting.
"I was just blown away when I learned what he had done for our country in Vietnam, and I'm always tickled when other people have a chance to meet him and be exposed to what he's done for our country," Rogers said.
Council members discussed complaints with the Department of Veterans Affairs, and more specifically, the Veterans Health Administration. The VHA is responsible for administrating the nationwide network of VA Medical Centers, which provide subsidized health care to the nation's veterans.
"Many don't know where to receive assistance, this is not only paid housing and medical assistance," Adkins said. "This is probably the biggest problem at this time. The other is getting veterans to the assistance that they need."
The VA medical centers in Alabama are not the worst, but they're also not the best, according to Adkins. The problems within the VA system stem from a lack of funding and management issues.
"The congressman [Rogers] is the bursar," Adkins said. "He has the capability of funding the activities and seeing that the funds are going where they need to go."
Rogers has been involved with many bills in Washington, D.C. to increase funding for veterans' benefits and to change the way veterans receive their benefits.
"We've recently made some changes in veterans' choice of health care providers that allows them, if they can't see a doctor or health care provider that they need within a certain number of days, to go outside the area," Rogers said.
The VA has been under fire in recent years after it was made public that excessive wait times and lack of adequate care might have lead to as many as 40 deaths at a VA medical center in Phoenix.
"The next thing that we're going to move to is to say that you can go to any provider that you want to based on what you'd rather do, from your own health care perspective," Rogers said. "That's probably going to happen next year."
Many in Congress have sought to privatize veterans' health care benefits over the past several years.
"The general consensus in congress is that we should give every veteran a VA card and a private insurance card and let them pick whichever provider they want to go to," Rogers said. "If the VA can improve its quality of service, then they'll survive. If they can't, they'll go away and the private sector will absorb those health care needs."
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