We will have only one panel of witnesses and only those invited to testify will be permitted to speak.

Thank you, all for being here today, and for all the good work each of you do to serve your veteran neighbors in Puerto Rico and across the Caribbean.

Well, thank you, very much Congresswoman.

I am pleased to be an original co-sponsor of H.R. 3218.

I can tell you a lot of the ideas that I hear coming out of today are greatly appreciated, but, to be honest with you, there are a lot of ideas that I and other Members of this Committee have been talking about and asking to be implemented…

If we set up metrics, we should be able to set up metrics to evaluate the VA health care system in general, each VISN, each hospital, each facility, CBOC, each practitioner, for that matter.

This is not the case. And privatization is certainly not the goal.

But you can't ignore the reality.

Leadership as a character quality has nothing to do with orthopedic surgeons, podiatric surgeons, or any other training.

This is about the veteran in need of care.

I thank all of you. I am going to now yield myself time for questions and comment.