John Bel Edwards: “I appreciate his bringing this serious problem before the House. I wish, in hindsight, he'd brought it to us earlier…”

“I appreciate his bringing this serious problem before the House. I wish, in hindsight, he'd brought it to us earlier than 5 or 10 minutes ago. I hope we could work together to try to find a way to address the needs he's mentioned. But, my colleagues, let me reemphasize two points. He may know the source of the funding, but I'm not sure he intended to actually cut out funding, which this amendment would do, that is needed to hire VA employees to man our VA hospitals to see our veterans get the service that they desperately need and deserve. In addition, we've had lengthy discussion, including from the Republican leadership, about the importance of oversight of this additional funding, this historic level of funding we're putting into the VA this year. If we cut out the accounts that the gentleman's trying to cut out in this amendment, that undermines the entire effort that was discussed so eloquently by my Republican colleagues, that we've got to have enough money to have oversight to see that these new dollars are spent wisely and for the highest priority. So, if the gentleman persists in offering the amendment and having a vote on it, I would ask my colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, in all due respect, to reject it and allow us to then work together in the months ahead to find an appropriate way to more adequately fund reimbursement rates for America's veterans.”