DOTHAN, Ala. — Public-private partnerships in the form of vouchers for veterans could help both rural hospitals and veterans in Alabama’s Black Belt region, U.S. Rep. Barry Moore suggested Monday.
“The system is so very broken; there’s plenty of money, that’s not the problem, it’s just the mismanagement of the resources that’s the issue,” Moore, R-Enterprise, said about the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs at an Alabama League of Municipalities luncheon.
The league is holding a series of congressional luncheons around the state and Moore touched on a number of topics relevant to Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District, which he’ll represent until early next year. Moore defeated Rep. Jerry Carl of District 1 in the Republican primary earlier this year and faces Democrat nominee Tom Holmes in the Nov. 5 general election.
Once Moore opened the floor to take questions from those in attendance, Elaine Knight, Midland City council member and veteran, asked the congressman what was being done on a federal level to increase the number of VA health care providers, citing her own struggles of having to travel out of state to Georgia to receive care.
“The thing that I’m told is they have too many veterans,” Knight told Moore. “Their workload is so heavy that they could make twice the money on the outside and have less stress because the VA does not allow them to take care of veterans.”
Moore concurred that the VA system was not sufficiently helping veterans, and cited his office’s record of helping his own veteran constituents, telling Knight that his office had worked on 5,277 cases to get roughly $12 million’s worth of payouts and care to veterans.
As to how to improve the VA health care system, Moore suggested that expanding the flexibility under which veterans could receive care could not only help veterans, but keep Alabama’s rural hospitals open, which have seen closures and suspensions of services in recent years.
Speaking with Alabama Daily News after the event, Moore expanded on his suggestion for the VA to operate on something more akin to a public-private partnership model, something he said could kill two birds with one stone in keeping rural hospitals open, and expanding care for veterans.
“Let veterans use voucher programs for local hospitals, rural hospitals, because rural hospitals are dying on a vine because they can’t afford to stay up, there’s probably not a demand for the services,” Moore told ADN.
“It’s important for job security too, some of our poultry producers need a local emergency room to take care of people, and they can’t keep the plant open if there’s not an emergency room close by.”
More than half of Alabama’s 52 rural hospitals are currently at risk of closing, 19 of which are at an immediate risk of closure, according to a report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.
In an effort to remain open, some hospitals have sought federal assistance by converting to a Rural Emergency Hospital, which, while providing roughly $3.3 million a year in federal assistance, does not permit hospitals to perform inpatient services, which typically includes things like obstetrical and mental health care.
Between rural hospitals shuttering their doors, or losing key services from seeking federal assistance, Moore identified shrinking health care access as a problem for his district, but again pointed to expanding where veterans could seek care as a potential solution.
“It’s almost like a public-private partnership where they could use their VA dollars at a local hospital,” Moore continued.
“That would shore up some of the revenue streams for the hospital and give them more money to work with, some more services they could possibly provide. It would also free up the jam at the VA.”
There are about 400,000 veterans in Alabama, who between them and their immediate family make up about 26% of the state’s population. Roughly 31% of calls to the state’s 988 Crisis Line have been from veterans, with state leaders working to dedicate more resources to helping veterans.
Alabama lawmakers recently passed a law that will see the Alabama departments of Veterans Affairs and Mental Health collaborate to improve both the quality and access of mental and behavioral health care for veterans.