The bottom line is the Choice program is broken. We need to fix it, and we need to fix it as soon as possible.

Could I get your personal assurance that you will directly engage in the efforts to address the frustrations with veterans in my State with the Choice Program, specifically with Health Net?

I hope you can track these numbers. You know them.

If the same thing would have happened there on private property, would it have been 2 years for the cleanup under the same circumstances? I hope not.

The intent of the Choice Act was to give veterans more opportunity to seek timely care in their communities, but as we all know, in practice it simply has not happened.

from my perspective, if you need $1.3 billion for the new hires that we are hiring and it is not in the budget for 2018, we are not doing our job.

I do have some issues that are more parochial. I will put those forward to you in writing to get back to me.

It would be great to know what the cost estimates are for that replacement.

The question is when and at what point in time are we going to be interoperable to the point where the information that the DOD has, and by the way, if it is not good information coming to you, you do not have good information.

The very first meetings that I was at in Senate Veterans' Affairs, we talked about interoperability between the DOD and VA.

the nondefense discretionary cap is going to be $3 billion lower than it is this year, so we are going to get a double whammy off this thing, if you know what I mean.

By consolidating the VA's multiple community care programs... that would reduce the confusion for veterans and VA employees alike.

If you need $1.3 billion for the new hires that we are hiring and it is not in the budget for 2018, we are not doing our job.

In many ways, both the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and the Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA) have made some significant progress over the past year, but I am sure that you would agree that we have much more work to do.

I believe he is cleared on our side and so if, Mr. Chairman, if you and the other members of this subcommittee can make that plea to your caucus to take off the hold so we can get him confirmed, it could make a big difference.

You guys are three branches of the same arm, and it really kind of worries me on different things.

We all know and we agree that accountability of VA is critically important, whether we are talking about delivering quality and timely care or whether we are talking about IT initiatives such as electronic health records and scheduling…

If we do another round of BRAC, will it improve readiness or will it take away from our readiness?