Abby Finkenauer: More help needed for mental health

WATERLOO - Veterans who met with two politicians here Tuesday had questions about their health care and the answers concerned money.

The 30 or so veterans meeting with state Rep. Abby Finkenauer, Democratic candidate in Iowa's 1st Congressional District, and U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., asked why they can't receive VA health care simply by showing their discharge papers.

Moulton, a Marine veteran who served in Iraq, said the answer was because 'we don't have the money.”

'The VA has been consistently underfunded,” he said. 'And if you look forward at all the veterans coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, we don't have any money to pay for our health care.”

'We're here to listen,” Finkenauer said. 'We want to know ideas or what you're seeing out there and what we can do better.”

Chiquita Loveless, a U.S. Navy veteran and coordinator for military and veteran student services at the University of Northern Iowa, asked why more elected officials don't spend time with the troops.

'Come out there and get a feel for what we do out there,” Loveless said. 'I just feel that before you make a decision for myself or any other veteran, you need to have at least walked it, or lived it, or been out there and not just come out and do a photo op.”

Moulton agreed, and said in the military he learned 'you don't really know what's going on until you get there on the ground.”

'The big thing I've learned is you can't pass great policy unless you're actually talking to the folks that are living it every day,” Finkenauer said. 'It's important to actually put faces to what needs to get done.”

Many of the veterans talked about the VA being underfunded and the difficulty of making hospital appointments.

'We absolutely need to do more when it comes to mental health care for veterans and everybody across this country,” Finkenauer said, 'to really start dealing with PTSD and making sure that funds are there to start addressing the problem.”

After the roundtable Finkenauer answered questions about the Nov. 6 election.

She said she will continue to run her race as she's been running it.

'The No. 1 thing we have to do in Washington, and I think this is across the board, is to bring some stability back,” Finkenauer said. 'Right now, there's so much instability and chaos when it comes to a lot of programs, including veteran programs.”

Finkenauer is running against Rep. Rod Blum, a Dubuque Republican, who has held the seat since 2014.