FL-3 Is a Veterans District
Florida’s 3rd District is home to the Malcom Randall VA Medical Center in Gainesville — one of the five busiest VA hospitals in the entire country — plus the Lake City VA Medical Center, and VA clinics in Ocala. This district has one of the highest concentrations of veterans in Florida. The VA isn’t some abstract federal program here. It’s where your neighbors, your family members, and your friends go for care.
The facility itself is world-class. The problem is getting to it.
The Distance Problem
If you’re a veteran in Dixie County, a routine appointment at Malcom Randall is 90 minutes each way. Hamilton County is even further. That’s a whole day gone for a checkup — if you have a car, if you can take the time off work, if you’re well enough to make the drive.
The MISSION Act says if you’re more than 30 minutes from a VA facility, you’re entitled to community care. But community care in a rural county often means there’s no provider nearby either. The law gives you a right. The geography takes it away.
Veterans don’t need another promise. They need a clinic that shows up where they live.
Closing the Gap: Mobile Clinics Now, Permanent Clinics Next
Nine counties in this district have no VA facility at all. Getting a permanent clinic established takes years — site selection, funding, construction, staffing. Veterans in those counties can’t wait that long.
The mobile clinic program puts care on the ground now, with veterans served first under existing VA sharing authority. While the vans are running, they do something else: they show us exactly where the demand is. Which stops have the longest lines. Which corridors need permanent facilities. The mobile clinics aren’t just a stopgap — they’re the site survey for what comes next.
The goal is permanent VA clinics in the communities that need them most — determined by real utilization data from the mobile routes, not by someone drawing lines on a map in Washington.
Every Veteran Deserves Care — Regardless of Discharge Status
Veterans with Other Than Honorable (OTH) discharges have twice the suicide risk of the general veteran population. Many of them were discharged for conditions that the military itself caused — PTSD, traumatic brain injury, substance use that started as self-medication for untreated wounds.
The military gave them the condition. Then it punished them for having it. Then the VA turned them away for being punished.
That’s not a policy failure. That’s a betrayal.
Recent expansions have opened some VA services to OTH veterans, particularly for mental health and suicide crisis care. But coverage is still incomplete and the bureaucratic barriers are real. Many OTH veterans don’t even know they may now qualify.
Our mobile clinics serve every veteran who shows up. We connect OTH veterans with the VA benefits they’ve earned, help them navigate discharge upgrades, and provide care through FQHC partnerships for anything the VA still won’t cover. No veteran gets turned away at our door.
Defend the VA — Don’t Privatize It
The current administration is cutting 80,000 VA staff positions. The stated goal is efficiency. The actual result is longer wait times, closed clinics, and veterans pushed into the private healthcare system where they become profit centers instead of patients.
The VA is the only healthcare system in this country where salaried doctors show up to serve the mission, not to generate billing codes. There’s no insurance company between a veteran and their doctor. No prior authorization. No denial letter. The mission is care.
Salaried employees serve the mission. Contractors serve the contract. When you privatize the VA, you don’t make it more efficient — you change who it serves. It stops serving veterans and starts serving shareholders.
My position is clear: strengthen the VA, don’t gut it. Fill the vacancies. Expand telehealth. Fund the mobile clinics. Hold leadership accountable for wait times and outcomes. The answer to a system that needs improvement is to improve it — not to hand it to people whose incentive is profit.
This Is One We Can Start Locally
Mobile clinics don’t need new legislation. Federal grants already exist to fund them — HRSA, VA community care partnerships, and rural health initiative dollars are all available now. FQHCs already know how to bill on a sliding scale.
What’s missing is a representative who brokers the partnership between the VA, the FQHCs, and the communities that need the care. Someone who holds the VA accountable for serving veterans where they live — not just where the building is.
This isn’t a ten-year plan. This is a Day One priority. The authority exists. The funding exists. The need is urgent. We connect the pieces and get clinics on the road.
Veterans Connect to Every Issue
- Healthcare — The mobile clinic model starts with veterans and expands to serve the entire community. The VA model of salaried care is the blueprint.
- Economy — A veteran who isn’t broke isn’t desperate. Economic stability is suicide prevention. The floor catches everyone, including those who served.
- Housing — Veterans in rural FL-3 face the same housing crisis as everyone else. Hurricane-rated co-op housing serves the whole community.