Whereas Congress has promoted policies to improve the health care capabilities of the Department of Veterans Affairs by providing significant increases in funds to hire staff, conduct research, build more facilities, and improve training; Whereas the approximately 19,300,000 veterans of the United States are a diverse group of individuals including older veterans with diseases associated with aging and disabilities associated with past wars which require frequent care and younger veterans with complex conditions related to improved battlefield medical care, and as a group contain a higher percentage of seriously wounded individuals needing complex lifelong physical and mental health care, which differs greatly from the patient mix cared for by most non-VA providers; Whereas over 9,300,000 veterans are enrolled in the health care system of the Department of Veterans Affairs, and of this number 7,100,000 actually use the health care system for all or part of their care, which is an increase of 82 percent since 2001, showing massive, growing need for care furnished by the VA; Whereas the RAND Corporation examined a decade of research and found that VA-provided care is equal to or better quality than private sector care in all forty-seven quality-of-care measurements it conducted as part of an independent assessment comparing VA outpatient care with comparable civilian facilities; Whereas the RAND Corporation’s Ready to Serve national study found that compared to non-VA mental health providers, VA mental health providers were significantly more likely to deliver both culturally competent care, which is important for engaging veterans and increasing access to care, as well as evidenced-based care that yields clinically meaningful and significant improvement of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and major depression