Rural Montana Veterans Risk Losing Healthcare Access

Barely four months into his first year in the Senate, Tim Sheehy teamed up with Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota to introduce the “Critical Access for Veterans Care Act.” What in the world was he thinking?

Apparently not about improving veterans’ healthcare access. The legislation could potentially gut the array of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) clinics across Montana and make it even harder for many rural veterans to get needed care.

In a nutshell, the bill would allow veterans living within 35 miles of federally designated Critical Access Hospitals (CAH) to bypass the VA entirely and self-refer to private facilities. While, on paper, this sounds like the 50,000 Montana veterans enrolled in VA healthcare will have more healthcare choices, it would ultimately leave them with fewer.

VHPI Senior Policy Analyst Russell Lemle detail another uphill battle for rural Montana veterans for the Independent Record.

Read the full piece here.