Beto O'Rourke

What is the total dollar value of outstanding uncollected overpayments?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and before the arrival of Dr. Wenstrup and Miss. Rice, I thought this was going to be a hearing restricted only to Members from Texas.

And in every instance where you said the veteran owes 3.7, 47.6, 49.1 million, that money has been paid to the veterans.

Could you get in the middle of it? I mean, you have the leverage.

So I don't want the collections agency going to the veteran, I want it going to the institution.

I think a really good conversation would be, you know, hey, Beto, quit banging on me for not being able to get this stuff done quickly enough.

Are both those numbers overpayment?

we could get from the servicemembers there in exquisite detail what they had done that day or the day before, what their job was, but if we asked them why they were there they would say, I don't know, you tell me.

your comments about you went from a position where you could not be more necessary to a position where many veterans feel absolutely unnecessary to society and to the country.

I would like you to take a page out of Mr. Iscol's book whose organization provides mental health care for veterans regardless of military discharge and does not wait until they are in crisis.

What do you think about a universal service bill that helps to address the lack of community that you see nationally?

I agree with my colleague from New Hampshire who said this is the best conversation we have had in this room in the four and a half years that I have been here.

Many of these are preventable deaths.

Thank you for your service, especially in the time where we first got to know you as undersecretary for VHA.

You were the first secretary that I know of that has made suicide reduction and prevention a top priority.

I would like to begin by thanking the chairman of the full committee, and I join the ranking member of the full committee in honoring the work of Chairman Roe, his staff, and his ensuring that we do the right thing for every single one of…

Let's meet the demand in some of these extraordinary, you know, unique cases.

I want to thank you for bringing everyone together and addressing an important issue that in the going on five years that I have been on the Committee we really have not addressed.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank you for calling this hearing and bringing together these witnesses, who I am so excited to hear from, and to thank you also for highlighting some concerns that are reflected in communities that…

I do want to stress, because there is very legitimate concern today about availability of timely VA loans and appraisals in rural areas.

I think what I am trying to get at and I am sorry to interrupt you, but just because I do not have a ton of time, but I want to know how often that is used and what that adds to the wait for someone.

When we heard from the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Oregon, his concern about folks waiting nine weeks...

I think it is very telling that you don't have an answer for that.

So really I am looking for your responses that you have promised me for the record including the consequences for recruiters not meeting a quota.

You need an act of Congress?