America’s veterans represent the very best of our nation. For many, the greatest battles begin after they return home, confronting lifelong illnesses and disabilities linked to military service. I intend on finding real solutions to these problems as your next congressman, and then following up to make sure we actually get the results we need.
Federal response has too often been to throw more money at the problem and declare victory. During my time in the Navy, I made process more efficient by attacking the root cause of the issue, saving taxpayers many millions of dollars; writing another check is not a substitute for meaningful reform. Veterans deserve a comprehensive strategy that emphasizes accountability, timeliness, and interagency coordination.
For example, wait times for routine operations can be as long as six months, when options to be seen by private or commercial providers could be much faster, but the process is blocked with red tape. Veterans choosing this path must forego scheduled appointments within the Veterans Administration (VA) system. By streamlining federal contracting rules, this could reduce that wait time to just weeks. Otherwise veterans see their conditions worsen and become more serious, increasing the long-term cost of their healthcare.
Also, many thousands of veterans are living with neurological disorders that may be associated with exposure to burn pits, airborne metals, trichloroethylene (TCE), PFAS chemicals, particulate matter, and other environmental hazards encountered during military service, and not always within a combat zone, leading to conditions such as Parkinson’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), dementia, and others.
Congress has already taken an important first step by establishing the Toxic Exposures Research Program (TERP). However, temporary funding is insufficient for a problem that will affect generations of veterans.
Congress should enact legislation that permanently authorizes and funds TERP, allowing researchers to conduct the long-term studies necessary to understand the full impact of military toxic exposures. In addition, lawmakers should establish a National Service Lifetime Exposure Research Registry that tracks veterans’ occupational and environmental exposures throughout their military careers and beyond. Such a registry would create the comprehensive data needed to identify trends, improve diagnoses, and develop targeted treatments.
This registry coupled with the use of artificial intelligence to comprehensively combine Department of War and VA data with other publicly available information (similar to the Cancer Moonshot initiative) could identify patterns across missions of medical records, environmental exposure histories, and genetic factors that traditional research methods often miss. We must leverage all the research out there before spending money on information we can already access
In addition, we need to be smarter on mental health, find veteran suicide risk factors earlier, and continue to partner with local non-profits and community networks that already exist to connect veterans with fellow service members, and increase crisis stabilization services to ensure veterans receive immediate care before emergencies become tragedies.
As your next Congressman, I will be accountable to you and your tax dollars. Congress is failing at the job of managing your money, and as a result, our veterans suffer. We need to do much better. The battlefield should never continue harming service members long after the fighting has ended.