Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity. I am constantly frustrated in this Chamber by our inability to come to an agreement. And today, we stand here arguing about whether a Senate position is better or whether a House position is better. The truth is that the American people want action. One of the basic things that we can all agree on is that we do not have enough medical providers in our system. We see a lot of veterans, and we try to force a lot of veterans through a very small funnel with very few providers. In fact, if you look at the data recently, as men and women come back from different places across the world, like Iraq and Afghanistan, we have a much higher pronounced need than ever before for physicians to treat PTSD. And yet, we have fewer physicians able to do that because, in that area of specialization, we do not have enough medical care providers in the VA. It seems pretty basic that one of the things that we ought to be able to agree on is the fact that we need more health care providers in our system. You can leave aside the issue of construction or leave aside the issue of technology or any of those kinds of things. The fact is that when a person, a patient, comes into the VA system, he needs a health care provider to be able to see him or her, and we do not have enough health care providers. That fact is inescapable. Today's motion, essentially, seeks to take care of that one issue, and that one issue is that we need more health care providers.…”