Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
March 15, 2005 -- Page: S2725

MRS. HUTCHISON. I chair the Veterans' Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee. It happens that today we had our hearing on the Veterans Affairs Department, and Secretary Nicholson came before our committee and talked about what is in the budget. He said, of course, we have full coverage for the priority 1 through 6 veterans. We have full coverage in the budget for the injured coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan. And we all know that the growth in the veterans medical care area has been in the other priority veterans, Nos. 7 and 8. These are people who do not have combat-related injuries and people who are in upper incomes. When they became covered a few years ago, really, it was thought by Congress that there would not be a big surge to get the Veterans Affairs coverage because they, we thought, had private insurance. But, in fact, that has been the big surge in medical care coverage for veterans, in those 2 categories, 7 and 8; and 15 percent of those do not have private coverage.

So what we are doing with this amendment is we are saying we are not going to change anything right now. We are not going to have copays, and we are not going to have enrollment fees. But I did talk to the Secretary about making sure that if there is private insurance, that that insurance would be the first payer in a veterans health care need; that the private insurance payer would pay first, and Veterans Affairs would come second so that we could recoup some of the money that could be going into serving other more needy veterans and try to also keep a balance in the budget. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to increase what is in the budget, and we will do that in this amendment.

We are, most certainly, going to try to do it in a way that will not harm any veteran at all. We are not going to have copay increases. We are not going to have enrollment fees, and we are not going to have a reduction in the per diem payments for nonservice-connected veterans in State veterans homes. So we are trying to do the right thing, while also whittling down the deficits we are facing in our country.

I think Senators Craig and Ensign have a very good amendment. We are going to do the right thing for veterans always. We will be able to assure coverage this year with this added $400 million, and we will be able to come back in next year, if we need more.

Mr. President, I want to mention one other area before I turn the podium back over to Senator Craig. It is something we will more fully discuss tomorrow. I wanted to lay down the marker that we will have an amendment to increase the number of border patrol in this budget. I am very concerned about the reports from our FBI Director Mueller, who told Congress that people from countries with ties to al-Qaida are crossing into the United States through our Mexican border.

Deputy Secretary of Homeland Secretary James Loy, recently said that intelligence reports say that Al-Qaida is looking at the Mexican border as a way to put people into the United States for the purpose of terrorist attacks. So I think we must increase the budget coverage above the 210 border patrol agents who have been added in the budget before us. We need to increase that to at least 1,000. Our intelligence reform bill said that we would have the capability to increase border patrol by 2,000 per year for the next 5 years. I am going to try, through an amendment, to increase that to at least 1,000, and we will do it without busting the top line of the budget.

We think it is very important that we stop people from coming over our borders illegally. We know we are vulnerable in this Nation right now. We know we need more places for detention, more Border Patrol agents, and better technology to secure our borders to the south and the north. These Border Patrol agents will go throughout the United States to the Border Patrol centers.

My amendment will be sponsored by Senator Cornyn, Senator Bingaman, Senator McCain, and Senator Feinstein. These are Senators from border States who know the problems of illegal immigration firsthand.

It is a very important amendment that we will discuss more fully tomorrow, but I hope our colleagues will start thinking of ways that we can assess the priorities and determine that we need at least a thousand Border Patrol agents in this year's budget and another thousand next year. But we will do 1,000 at a time, I hope, because that is what can be absorbed, that is the number that can be trained in any 1 year.

I hope we will address the Border Patrol issue tomorrow, and I certainly hope that when we have the competing veterans amendments that we will take the Craig-Ensign-Vitter-Hutchison amendment that does keep in mind the priorities of our budget, but also increases the amount that will be for medical care for our veterans and will not require any higher copays or registration fees for any of our veterans at this time.