Missoula, MT – Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) is announcing the hire of Sam Redfern, who will serve as the CVA Western Field Director in Montana. Redfern will continue developing a base of grassroots activists in the state, focusing primarily on reforming and fixing the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Sam joins CVA after over nine years of experience as president and founder of the United States of Hope. Sam is an Iraq War combat veteran and 15-year Army veteran. He received an honorable discharge in March of 2017. He is an alumnus of the University of Montana and resides with his fiancé and two daughters in Missoula.
CVA Western Field Director Sam Redfern issued the following statement:
“It’s great to join a team fighting for something I truly believe in: getting our veterans the health care they deserve. I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to share CVA’s message with Montanans and fight to empower veterans of the state with choice over their health care. If a veteran isn’t receiving the help they need at the VA, they deserve the opportunity to get that care in the private sector. I look forward to partnering with veterans, military family members, and concerned citizens to advance freedom in Big Sky Country.”
CVA is a non-partisan, non-profit organization that advocates for policies that will preserve the freedom and prosperity that veterans sacrificed to defend. The goal of CVA is to translate the experience, concerns and hopes unique to veterans and their families into a common vision of freedom. CVA applies this unique perspective to speak out on issues that threaten to cripple not only our economic and national security, but the spirit of opportunity and liberty.
Recently, CVA pushed legislators to pass an extension of the Veterans Choice Program, a program that allows veterans to use their VA benefits to seek care outside of the department if they meet certain requirements. The Veterans Choice Program, which was enacted under Veterans’ Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act, was implemented in response to the wait list scandal of 2014. It was passed as a stop-gap measure and was never intended to be a permanent solution. The “40-mile, 30-day” rule means that, in theory, veterans can only seek care outside the VA if they can’t be seen within a month of when they request an appointment or if they can’t be seen within a 40-mile radius. Even then, many veterans are still forced to jump through many bureaucratic hoops to access the program.
CVA has advocated for sweeping choice reforms at the VA for years. In CVA’s Fixing Veterans Health Care Taskforce, the group advocates that veterans should have the option to take their earned health care funds and use them to access care at the VA or in the private sector.
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