Senate Committee Agrees to Meet in Alaska to Discuss Veterans' Healthcare

The US Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs agreed this week to hold a field hearing in Juneau, Alaska to discuss veterans’ healthcare options in our country’s northernmost state as a new program takes effect.

The system in Alaska was a guideline for the new federal Choice Program. Dan Sullivan, Alaska’s Republican Senator, worries about the impact this new program may have on existing access to healthcare for veterans living in Alaska.

No doubt the recent Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act has influenced Alaska to take a closer look at what they can do to avoid problems with the new healthcare system for veterans in their chilly state.

It was Sullivan who first proposed the idea of a field hearing, a meeting with the same procedural requirements as a standard Congressional hearing sans location. Sullivan hopes the hearing will “help identify the breakdown” when implementing a new federal healthcare program that will allow veterans to seek care at locations outside the current system laid out by the US Department of Veterans’ Affairs.

The US Senate Committee on Veteran’s Affairs agreed to Sullivan’s proposal and the field hearing is scheduled to take place in August.