All Quotes

From my conversations with the veterans in Maine, Project ARCH has been quite successful. Unfortunately the VA appears to be moving to close down this popular program.

I am saddened that our veterans have been forced to wait for the healthcare they need and deserve, so until the VA can solve this problem I, like many other Texas veterans, want to help care for them.

We need to insure that VA is making full use of these tools across their network.

Improving access requires a multi-prong approach as the hearing title states, non-VA care must be part of an integrated solution.

We need to insure VA is taking steps to track their cost and be a good steward of taxpayers' dollars.

Non-VA care has been a priority topic of this committee for many years.

The VISN structure has been under scrutiny for a few years now and I understand that VHA has reduced the number of headquarters staff through a realignment effort.

Patients need to have choice because for me, my level of success and how well I was doing is by how many wanted to see me when they know they have a choice.

Ronald Reagan once said if you have a message that is important, tell it over and over again.

The problem I have found within the VA system is you had too many people who don't know what they don't know because they have always been in that system.

If they can have the input of how things can be better, you have got to go that route.

I can't tell you how grateful I am for this day to have arrived, and unfortunately it took disastrous findings within the VA to get to this point and it is a step in the right direction.

Project ARCH is in Maine.

Under the Affordable Care Act, 3,000 Mainers were denied access because our government refused to extend Medicaid to the 70,000 Mainers of which 3,000 were veterans.

I believe it is essential that we look at structural and cultural root causes that got us in this position in the first place.

The only way we are going to truly address the litany of problems is to look at the fundamental change within the department.

We are here to work for the veteran, brave men and women who have sacrificed so much for our freedom, men and women who right now deserve better.

I am proud that this committee has addressed these problems in a bipartisan fashion and I am hopeful that the spirit continues as we roll up our sleeves and begin the hard work of finding solutions.