'Where is the equity in this?': Moylan seeks an end to VA requiring Guam veterans to pay for airfare to get treated off-island, besides Hawaii

When a veteran on Guam requires medical treatment that is not available on Guam, the Department of Veterans Affairs would cover the airfare costs to Hawaii.

If the treatment is not available in Hawaii, the Guam veteran would then have to foot the bill to pursue the treatment in another state.

However, if a veteran in any of the 50 states, including Hawaii, required treatment not available in their own state, the VA would cover their airfare costs to another state.

“Where is the equity in this?” Del. James Moylan said in a May 2 letter to Veterans Affairs Secretary Denis McDonough, seeking justification on what he believes to be a discriminatory policy.

Veterans brought up the issue with Moylan, who finds it to be “quite an archaic policy and relatively unfair” for veterans currently residing on Guam.

“If adequate medical treatment is not available in Guam or Hawaii, then the DVA should fund the airfare costs for the Guam veteran to fly to a state where that care is provided,” Moylan wrote. “While I would believe that the DVA’s intention is not to establish policies which enable such inequities, unfortunately, this is the reality we are facing, and one that needs to change.”

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Moylan, who is seeking re-election, also noted in his letter to the VA secretary that the heads of the VA Pacific Islands Health Care System and the VISN 21, who have influence over issues affecting veterans on Guam, have not visited the Community Based Outpatient Clinic, CBOC, on Guam or the island in general.

If they did, they would have learnt of this policy or other challenges our veterans face, Moylan said.

This is just the latest letter from Moylan to VA’s McDonough in months. In February, the delegate wrote that it is “unacceptable” for a veteran living on Guam or somewhere else to wait an average of seven months to get a disability rating.

In February 2023, the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, released a report citing lack of healthcare personnel to serve thousands of military service veterans on Guam.

GAO said the vacancies persist not only on Guam but also in American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands despite hiring flexibilities, monetary awards and other special incentives to hire and retain staff.

The significant recruitment and retention challenges, GAO said, are posed by Guam’s geographical distance from the U.S. mainland, among other things.