Clearly, these restrictions are in place to do one thing and one thing only; limit the employee's freedom of choice.

Any effort to undermine these veterans' union rights should be vehemently opposed.

We need strong leaders at the VA hospitals who are committed to putting the plan in place.

That is unacceptable to me and I am sure everyone in this room.

We must not lose sight of where we started.

Our President has said he is committed to increasing funding for our veterans, but this does not mean the VA gets a blank check.

It remains far from perfect and in far too many cases it fails the very veterans it was created to serve.

It was Barry's story and accompanying allegations, that 40 veteran patients had died while waiting to receive care.

By removing the sunset date to the Choice Program, we are not endorsing the program in its current state.

However, the first step to reforming Choice is making sure that there is a smooth transition to lead the way.

The process of converting between various electronic formats may introduce unintentional errors or omissions.

I want to keep our work this evening laser focused on the future.