In a fiery speech on the House floor Wednesday night, U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Lansing) blasted a group of her Republican colleagues for threatening to vote down her bipartisan Solid Start Act, a bill to connect veterans with the Department of Veterans Affairs as they transition to civilian life. The bill would make permanent the Solid Start pilot program at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), through which the VA contacts veterans multiple times by phone in the first year after they leave service to check in and help connect them to programs and benefits.
Although the Senate passed Slotkin’s bill by unanimous consent earlier this month, a group of House Republicans on Wednesday threatened to vote the bill down over a single 16-word provision of the bill: ensuring the VA is “providing women veterans with information that is tailored to their specific health care and benefit needs.”
Slotkin made clear that the actual reason for their 11th hour opposition is because of abortion – and specifically their position that women veterans should have no access to abortion, even in cases of rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at risk.
“The 16 words here that they apparently now object to, they address essential women’s health care that’s already covered by the VA – things like mammograms, maternity care, and medications for conditions like PTSD, depression, diabetes and heart conditions,” Slotkin said in her remarks. “… None of this is controversial. None of this is objectionable … It should be the most bipartisan issue in the world, and you’re making it political. Shame on you.”
View Slotkin’s speech here:
Slotkin is continuing to work to pass the Solid Start Act this week. The bill was passed by unanimous consent in the Senate earlier this month; if the House passes the bill, the President is expected to sign it into law in the coming days.
The bill has been endorsed by Disabled American Veterans (DAV), the American Legion, and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW).
Newly separated veterans encounter changes in job status, lifestyle, housing, health care, and location. The rate of suicide among veterans within their first year of transition is nearly two times higher than the overall veteran suicide rate. In 2017, among veterans who died by suicide, 62% had not been in contact with the Veterans Health Administration in the preceding two years, and 40% of veterans responding to a recent survey by the American Legion were not sure whether they were eligible for VA mental health services.
