Flint Talks Montana Issues With VA Secretary at SHOT Show

More freedom and flexibility for female vets. A new clinic in Kalispell. And- a 60% reduction in claims backlog.

It was great catching up with President Trump's Secretary of Veterans Affairs- Doug Collins- at the SHOT Show in Las Vegas this past week. The SHOW is packed full of veterans and great American patriots. The VA Secretary held a townhall meeting focused on veterans suicide, and also took advantage of the opportunity to run into veterans from all over the country and hear their concerns.

The full audio is below. Here some excerpts.

Disability Claims Backlog

Secretary Collins: "Now think about this. I mean, for people listening- this is mind blowing 260,000 over 125 days. Okay, that had not been completed in over 100. Average days to complete was over 138 days. We had over a million in the cycle in the queue. I'm sitting here today at SHOT Show in January, almost a year later, we're right at and will be by the end of this month, under 100,000. Our average days to complete is down to 80 Days."

More Freedom and Flexibility for Female Vets

Aaron Flint: I love what you guys are doing for our female women warriors, simple things like, hey, if they want to go see an OBGYN, why do they got to go talk to some dude at the local VA? Why can't they just go straight to the OBGYN that they trust?

Secretary Collins: "When I found that out, it just- it floored me. And you know where that came from? It come from me sitting with student veterans in Southern California, and this young lady came up to me and she said, and she had had an issue, and it took her almost three weeks to get to her gynecologist- because she had to go. Because the old system was, I go back to the primary care. The primary care decides if I need to go to the OB- even if they're inside the VA. Now think about how stupid this is, even if the doctor was three doors down, this primary care person was having to decide if they could go down and see the- we just said, I said, we got, you know, our women veterans are growing as fast as any of our population at all. We're going to make it easy. When I told my wife that, my wife was horrified, yeah. She said, Wow, I don't go back to my general practitioner to go to the OBGYN I just call them directly."

New VA Clinic Opening in Kalispell, Montana

I've driven past the new VA clinic in Kalispell, Montana several times already. It's right across the street from Glacier High School and is a good looking facility.  Looks like a grand opening ceremony is taking place in the next few days. If I'm not already at the wrestling tournament in Butte- I'll be there.

By the way- big thanks to our SHOT Show sponsors: Tatanka Cigars, DaHonu Life Premium Kava Seltzers, and Al's Bootery!