Political Quotes

“I come to the floor to speak about an issue we should all be concerned about, the State of veterans health care in our VA hospitals, our VA clinics, our VA system, and around the country. I have been concerned about this for some time, working very hard on getting outpatient clinics built in Louisiana--new ones, expanded ones, in particular, in Lafayette and Lake Charles. I am a member of a bipartisan working group on VA backlog issues, and we have made substantial progress through that bipartisan group. We have also introduced legislation to deal specifically with that VA backlog crisis. As we work on those things, unfortunately, the news out of the VA gets worse and worse, and the need for real progress on these fronts-- including the community-based clinics I am going to talk about in Louisiana and elsewhere--that need gets more and more dire. Think about the recent reports. CNN and others have reported that in Arizona at least 40 U.S. veterans died--died--waiting for appointments at the Phoenix VA health care system. Many of these were placed on a secret waiting list. The secret list was part of an elaborate scheme designed by the VA managers in Phoenix who were trying to hide the fact that 1,400 to 1,600 sick veterans were forced to wait months to see a doctor. There is an official list that is shared with officials in Washington. That official list shows that the VA has been providing timely appointments.…”