Bernie Sanders

Actually, the gentleman who helped found that system is sitting behind me right now and now works on my staff.

Believe me, it is not. Rural America faces enormous problems.

In fact, in Burlington, that is what we are doing. The community health centers linking up.

You are probably talking to the right guy, who is chairman of the Agriculture and Health and Human Services.

What we are working on is the quadrupling of community health centers over a 5-year period from an investment of $2 billion to $8 billion.

I think we are now at the moment in history where we may get to implement some of these ideas.

I think it is a huge number.

I, again, apologize for being late. I couldn't be at two places at the same time.

If we were not importing thousands of physicians from India and countries which themselves are in desperate need of doctors, if we were not dependent on foreign doctors, our entire primary healthcare system would collapse.

Would you agree that it makes sense and in the long run saves money if we greatly expand the number of community health centers?

We have an inverted pyramid. We spend huge amounts of money on specialty care and yet we underfund, grotesquely in my view, primary health care.

We spend more money by far per capita on health care than any other Nation on Earth, and yet our health care outcomes are way behind many other countries.

I think we have to end the national, international disgrace that we are the only major country on Earth without a national health care program.

Right now, in my view we need a revolution in terms of primary health care in this country.

I was very pleased to hear, in your remarks, your understanding about the crisis of global warming, your understanding about the absurdity of us spending many, many hundreds of billions of dollars every year importing foreign oil into this…

I would hope very much, with your leadership, with President Obama's leadership, that we could bring some concrete--real, concrete changes so people understand what sustainable energy means, what energy conservation means.

I think you can't bring them all back in overnight, but I think the goal must be that any person who wore the uniform of this country, regardless of income, should be able to come back into the VA.

We have a moral obligation to our veterans to make sure we provide them the best care that we possibly can.

I think that is a great investment and I hope we can expand that whole area.

It is just incredible that in this age of computer technology that people submit claims, they don't hear for months and months, and it goes on and on.

Let us not forget those people who are still suffering from Gulf War Illness.

I know you are going to be a great leader and the VA certainly needs the kind of leadership that you are going to be providing.

We have a solemn obligation to make sure that every man and woman who has fought in that war, when they come home, they get all of the care and the benefits they have been promised.

You can't run a system as large as the VA if you do not know what your budget is going to be.

The good news is we have begun to make some progress. The bad news is that we have a long way to go, in my view.