Roby Advocates Community Health Care Network for Veterans
Rep. Martha Roby has been a champion of improved health care for veterans, working tirelessly to address a myriad of problems at the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System and Department of Veterans Affairs facilities across the country.
The Montgomery Republican has been moving forward on what she calls a community health care network for veterans, which would combine the department’s facilities with outside providers – a hybrid system.
She told business and elected leaders that the Central Alabama Veterans Health Care System (CAVHCS) has an opportunity to be an “example for the rest of the country.”
Her timing at a Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce Eggs & Issues at RSA Activity Center could not have been better. Roby was a member of the Benghazi Select Committee and defended the release of the majority report, which happened one day before the Chamber event.
“I would encourage everybody in this room to read that report in its entirety,” said the third-term lawmaker who represents the Second Congressional District. “It’s 800 pages. It’s long, but it’s important.”
She defended the report, saying it contained “a lot of new information. This new information paints a much clearer picture and gives us a much greater understanding about what happened before, during and after the attack in Benghazi and how the government handled it so poorly.”
In an impassioned speech, Roby criticized Washington for “moving at a snail’s pace. There was a clear effort on the behalf of government agencies to cover their facts. This in the report and substantiated by testimony and documents telling the public something very different than what they acknowledged to one another in private.
“This report shows a real breakdown of communication within the chain of command. It shows that our administration was far more concerned about our diplomatic relations with Libya than it was with the safety of the individuals who had been sent there.”
“The bottom line is that Washington failed to have our guys’ back when they needed it and from my perspective – that lack of urgency (showed) either incompetence or indifference or both. The American government failed its people in Libya that it sent into harm’s way and it mislead you the American people in the aftermath. We need to ensure that this never happens again. Please read the report. You will learn so very much.”
She also had some harsh words for the Senate Democrats for not passing a military construction bill that also funded the Department of Veterans Affairs and included a supplemental bill to fight the Zika virus.
“Of course, funding our VA is extraordinarily important to ensure that our veterans have what they need – access to the best health care,” Roby said. “We need this bill signed into law.”
Roby accused President Obama and his executive orders of being a “fourth branch of government” because those orders do not go through Congress, and called for a “return in this country to constitutional order.” She praised the Supreme Court for striking down Obama’s executive order on immigration and said she will “fight tooth and nail against over-regulation and I think the Supreme Court decision is a step in the right direction.”
