Robert A. McDonald: “To turn VA around, we must maintain our momentum of change, and we cannot do that without cooperation of Congress.”

Reforming VA health care cannot be achieved by dismantling it or by preventing veterans from receiving the specialized care and services that can be received only from VA.

Secretary McDonald said that he was going to try to increase the transparency of the agency and that he would not tolerate whistleblower retaliation.

Congress must act or veterans will suffer. That is unacceptable to me and I know that it is unacceptable to you.

We will judge the success of all our efforts against a single metric, and that is veterans' outcomes.