{"id":263297,"date":"2017-10-30T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-10-29T20:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=263297"},"modified":"2017-10-30T06:00:30","modified_gmt":"2017-10-29T20:00:30","slug":"pacific-veterans-will-get-congressional-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/pacific-veterans-will-get-congressional-hearing\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific veterans will get congressional hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WASHINGTON, D.C.<\/strong>\u2014Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Ind-MP) announced Friday that Pacific area veterans, whose needs are often neglected, will get a congressional hearing next year. <\/p>\n<p>The hearing decision is the result of a request from Sablan, Delegate Aumua Amata Coleman Radewagen (R-American Samoa), and Delegate Madeleine Z Bordallo (D-Guam) to Dr. Phil Roe (R-Tennessee), who chairs the House Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee.<\/p>\n<p>The three Pacific delegates made the request on Oct. 11 and Roe responded 13 days later. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI would be pleased to work with you to schedule a hearing on Pacific insular area veteran access to care in the second session of the 115th Congress,\u201d Roe wrote in response. \u201cEnsuring that all our nation\u2019s veterans have access to the healthcare and other services they need to live healthy, full lives is my top priority as chairman.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPacific insular area veterans\u2014and in particular veterans in American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, the Independent State of Samoa, and the Freely Associated States\u2014face a number of barriers to timely, accessible VA care and benefits,\u201d Roe added.<\/p>\n<p>Sablan said he is most grateful to Roe for responding affirmatively to the request for a hearing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI joined the Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee in this Congress because it had become clear to me that veterans in the Marianas and throughout the Pacific, who are at the very end of a long supply chain, were simply not getting the attention and services they have earned.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom my first day on the committee, Dr. Roe has been interested in the story I brought of Pacific veterans struggling to get even the basics in healthcare and other benefits\u2014and he promised to help.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAn oversight hearing next year would be a great opportunity for the Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee to learn even more about the barriers facing veterans living in the U.S. Pacific insular areas and to go to work on reducing those barriers.<\/p>\n<p>Sablan obtained a special waiver from the Democratic Caucus to be on the Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee. Ordinarily, members are limited to two committees. Veterans\u2019 Affairs is Sablan\u2019s third. <strong>(PR)<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, D.C.\u2014Delegate Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Ind-MP) announced Friday that Pacific area veterans, whose needs&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[18852,2362,1164,1589],"class_list":["post-263297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-democratic-caucus","tag-freely-associated-states","tag-va","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}