Bob Filner: “the $3 billion figure is not my figure. It comes from a process that was initiated and sustained by the major veterans…”

“the $3 billion figure is not my figure. It comes from a process that was initiated and sustained by the major veterans organizations in this Nation. They came up with a professional budget that was designed to accommodate the basic needs of the health care system, needs that had been left unmet for the last 5 years. When the gentleman from Florida says that he doubts that they would be able to use the funds, I would refer him to the Alzheimer's patients who are being released from hospitals because there are not the funds to keep them. I will refer the gentleman to hepatitis C victims, almost 2 million of them, who are suffering from a potentially fatal disease with no money to meet their health care needs. I would refer the gentleman to the Persian Gulf War illness victims who cannot get either their treatment or the explanation for their illness in any respectful fashion because there are no funds to do that. Every veteran in this Nation will tell us that there are needs that can be met...”