Bernie Sanders

There are very special interests out there who are prepared to spend huge sums of money and make a quick profit at the expense of the health and well-being of the American people.

I find it very hard to believe, in a world of unfettered, free trade, that we cannot safely bring medicine in from Canada or the United Kingdom.

Trying to get a handle on caloric intake of people, maybe making fast food chains publish in their menus the kinds of calories that people are absorbing.

I hope that you will work on that issue. I think it is absolutely doable and I think that millions of people would be very grateful to see lower-cost prescription drugs in this country.

On May 5th of this year I signed a letter along with 24 of my colleagues in the Senate and the House asking the Department of the Interior to provide emergency fiscal year 2009 funding to respond to this crisis.

This important legislation, introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders, would quadruple the amount of funding for community health centers over the next 5 years.

I think anything that supports getting veterans to know what they are entitled to, what is available to them, is essential.

That's wrong. That is really wrong.

Every veteran should know what he or she is entitled to.

Senator Sanders' bill enhancing the Automobile Assistance Allowance is good.

[w]e understand the importance of providing sufficient resources for vehicles or adaptive equipment to servicemembers and veterans who rely on them, but we cannot support this bill at this time.

We want to support that effort, but we also want to support the service organizations, other organizations in Vermont.

When we talk about the quality-of-life for our veterans, if somebody is immobile and forced to stay at home and can't get around their community, that is certainly a diminution of their quality-of-life.

We applaud Senator Sanders for introducing this important and overdue legislation.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Begich.

Does that mean that we have 10,000 more nurses in the VA?

I want to make more progress and I look forward to working with you if there are any technical problems in the bill, to see how we can work that out.

Vet Centers help. Why don't we do this? I am the first to happily concede that we have been making some progress.

I think we have got to be a lot more aggressive.

I think that, especially in rural areas, it is very important that every veteran know the benefits they are entitled to.

What we believe very strongly is that it is terribly important to have aggressive outreach; that there are many veterans who do not know what they are entitled to.

I think clearly that is a miscarriage--a disservice to those veterans who are suffering from major physical problems.

Of course, the Secretary of Homeland Security did not say anything disparaging about veterans.

I believe it is important for Federal agencies... to ensure that regulations relating to the public's health and safety... should be based on the best available science.