📋 Tender Overview
Colorado U.S. Senator Michael Bennet joined U.S. Senators Jon Tester D-Mont. and Gary Peters D-Mich. and 28 Senate colleagues in demanding immediate action following reports of significant delays in veterans prescription medications through the U.S. Postal Service USPS. In a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy the senators urge DeJoy to correct operational changes that are needlessly delaying veterans access to life-saving prescriptions.Veterans and the VA should be able to count on USPS for the timely delivery of essential prescription drugs wrote Bennet and the senators. No veteran should have to wonder when their antidepressant or blood pressure medication may arrive and the effects can be devastating if doses are missed. They continued USPS needs to immediately cease operational changes that are causing mail delays so that veterans do not needlessly suffer from illnesses exacerbated by delayed medication deliveries. Those who gave so much to serve this country should be able to count on the nations Postal Service to deliver their medications in a timely manner. The VA fills about 80 percent of its prescriptions through their Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy CMOP which primarily uses USPS to deliver to veterans homes. The VA CMOP fills almost 120 million prescriptions a year with deliveries arriving daily to about 330000 veterans across the country. According to the VA website prescriptions usually arrive within 3 to 5 days. Reports from veterans and VA staff have said that recently these medications are sometimes taking weeks to be delivered and causing veterans to miss doses of vital medications. In a press conference earlier today Bennet called out the administrations baseless attacks on USPS. Yesterday Bennet penned an op-ed in the Colorado Sun in which he called on the Senate to immediately return to Washington to fully fund the Postal Service. Last week Bennet joined the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in urging Postmaster General DeJoy to explain reports of recent changes to longstanding practices at USPS that would result in increased delivery times and costs for election mail. In early August Bennet also wrote to Senate leadership asking for 25 billion in emergency funding for the USPS in the next pandemic relief package.
