Sen. Angus King was in Augusta Friday to hear ideas on how long-term care for veterans can be improved, not just in Maine but across the country. At the University of Maine at Augusta, King led a field hearing for the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and he heard from two panels on what the committee can do to improve care for aging veterans.King said during the hearings that Maine's veteran population is expected to decline by 7% percent in 2025, while there will be a 31% increase in veterans aged 85 or older.Improvements that were pitched to the committee on Friday included improvements in institutionalized care like the state veterans' home, telehealth and expanding home-based primary care.Sharon Fusco who spoke today on behalf of the Maine Veterans Home, said they don't have the support or funding needed to operate at the quality she says veterans deserve. "Our reimbursement rates fail to cover the total cost of care, we simply cannot afford to continue to steal from the future of our homes to pay for our present," Fusco said. Fusco added that the veterans' home only has enough funding for the next 36 months. King said he's taking what he heard during the hearings back to his colleagues in Washington, D.C., where he is confident, they'll get to work on some of these ideas, saying the committee is the most bipartisan in the Senate.