David Shulkin

You need to do it in one month.

I believe that is essential for us to clarify that to be able to get more help to veterans.

I do not want to continue to spend taxpayer money, which is $25 million a year, maintaining buildings that are vacant or underutilized.

I think Senator Ernst and Senator Herona are sponsors of them.

Nothing is more important to me than making sure that we don't lose any veterans to suicide.

[N]othing is more important to me than making sure that we don't lose any veterans to suicide. As you know, 20 veterans a day are dying by suicide. That should be unacceptable to all of us. This is a national public health crisis, and it…

Without this legislation, VA would have been unable to use funding specifically appropriated for the Choice Program by Congress.

Veterans should be able to get care at any VA that they go into, and that is our commitment.

The MyVA vision was to provide a seamless, unified veteran experience across the entire organization and throughout the country.

And the worst situation is when somebody is in their home and they have to leave their home to go to an institution--a nursing home.

If there is evidence in science suggesting that this is helpful and effective... we absolutely want to be using it.

If we can keep them in their home with caregivers, we should be doing that.

The VA is fully committed to complying with the State regulations and the State laws, and we do.

I think you have identified an area of significant risk for us, that we have opportunity to do this in a much better way than we are currently doing this, so I think you are correct.

This is the right thing; it should have been done years ago.

From my perspective, maintaining the status quo is just not acceptable. The health and safety of our veterans is our Nation's highest priorities--among our highest priorities.

One of the recommendations that has come out nationally--and you have seen CVS actually take a lead in this--is not prescribing a month's worth of drug but really seven days' worth of drug.

Congress has been very clear on this for years and years. And that is why I believe that you and the American people and the veterans deserve a clear direction on this.

Yes. On the surface, I agree with you. This makes no sense at all.

the problems that we have in the VA are not primarily financial. These are primarily system issues that we haven't kept up with and we haven't modernized.

I am very concerned about finding new therapies that help our veterans with PTSD.

I think your example is a very good example we can all understand. But there is no doubt that we are being aggressive with this.

I think skepticism is appropriate. I don't know any other way to interpret history than to say that this has taken way too long, and there have been many false starts along the way.

There should be no doubt how a veteran gets help when they are in crisis.

I want my team in place. We have obviously very good career, acting professionals that are handling these right now, but I want permanent people in place.