Jose Luis Correa: “First of all, I thank all of our veterans for their service and sacrifice for our great country. I come from California…”

“First of all, I thank all of our veterans for their service and sacrifice for our great country. I come from California, the home of the greatest number of veterans in this great country. On their behalf, I would like to thank Chairman Roe and Ranking Member Walz for their tremendous job and leadership in addressing the needs of all of our veterans. I am pleased that we reached the bipartisan agreement, and I hope the rest of this place learns from the work the Veterans Affairs' Committee has done. I hope that tomorrow, when we wake up and open up those newspapers, this is a front-page story, because it deserves to be. Democrats and Republicans, everybody coming together to work for our veterans, that is the way it should be done. Three years ago, Congress created the Choice Program. This was an alternative to make sure that our veterans didn't have to wait to get the health services they needed. This bill will provide additional funding and short-term sustainability for this program called the Choice Program. This bill will also allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to open up more clinics and to hire additional doctors to make sure that our veterans get the service they deserve. Again, I am glad that we are here today and that we could work to make sure that our veterans get the services they earned. I urge all my colleagues to support this bipartisan measure.”