Bernie Sanders: “let me cut to the chase, and I will try to be brief here. We hear a lot of talk on the floor of the Senate about…”

“let me cut to the chase, and I will try to be brief here. We hear a lot of talk on the floor of the Senate about patriotism, about love of country, about how we all have to work together for the common good. It would seem to me that when we talk about those who sacrificed, those who have put their lives on the line to defend this country, we are talking about the men and women in America who are veterans. Yet what we have seen in the last month from the President and from Elon Musk is a chain saw approach to essentially destroy the Veterans' Administration, and that is, there are plans afoot--public; no one is debating the numbers--they want to fire 83,000 employees. When you fire 83,000 employees, no one, nobody believes that anything else will happen but that there will be a deterioration in the quality of healthcare our veterans receive or a delay in the benefits they have earned. Now, I have heard criticism of the VA. The VA is the largest healthcare system in America. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Does it have its problems? Of course it does. But compared to what? Compared to the American healthcare system, which is the most expensive in the world? a system in which 83 million Americans are uninsured or underinsured? where 60,000 people die each year? where we have the lowest life expectancy of any other major country on Earth? So, no, the VA is not perfect. It needs improvement.…”