Beto O'Rourke

Just to add to that there is also the related issue of how to pursue hardware acquisition programs that happen to have a very large software component to them.

This is unconscionable.

I think another step or an additional thing to keep in mind building on the admiral's comments is to try to close the loop on accountability...

Just a couple of points--one is the committee already and the Congress as a whole does have a mechanism in place to do that.

And so many of us are concerned about a provider shortage and what it will take to attract and retain the best talent possible to serve the veterans that we represent.

El Paso veterans have desperate mental health care needs and those needs are going unheeded despite repeated attempts to communicate with the VISN 18 director.

It's very hard to get direct answers from the local VHA and even through the administration...

We have a mental health care crisis and one that was confirmed by the VHA audit release last week...

So there's a penalty for going over but no reward for coming under.

And is there any--I want to make sure I'm using the right words; we don't use 'bonus'--but any incentive offered to a VHA director for returning money back to the VA or coming in annually under budget or not spending a certain amount or…

It also shows you how serious the situation is and the attention that is been drawn to it.

Are VA Directors' bonuses based on staying under budget? Are there disincentives in place that keep them from sending veterans into the community for care?

From my conversations with the veterans in Maine, Project ARCH has been quite successful. Unfortunately the VA appears to be moving to close down this popular program.

I think that is an incredibly important finding and recommendation that you made because, you know, until we have the facts and the best information, we are not going to be able to make the best authorizing and appropriating and oversight…

We still don't know what wait times are for veterans.

What is missing in the VA is competition. Our veterans deserve the very best, let us not keep them in this institution that is not working.

I don't think that the mathematics of this are that complicated.

You mentioned 64,000 who have not been able to get an appointment at all, we found in El Paso 36 percent of veterans seeking to make a mental health appointment were unable to obtain one at all.

How do you all decide that Fayetteville gets 7.4, El Paso, 1.9, some other community, another amount?

I think it is important, given what we now know about how people are bonused and how that leads to some unintended consequences.

I think we need a SWAT team flown down to El Paso to go connect these people.

I would fly down to El Paso immediately and try to discover who those 36 percent of the veterans seeking mental healthcare appointments who have been denied and locked out of the system are.

The problem with that is that money belongs to the veteran, and instead of saying we took an $8-million dollar hit for non-VA care to their budget, they need to say we took and gave $8 million dollars to the veteran.

I think this is a crisis. And frankly I do not see the urgency from you.

An issue that I would like to get your thoughts on, and I really loved Ms. Titus' idea about getting more residencies in rural or hard-to-serve communities like ours, is this question of where are we going to get the doctors in the…