I want to thank governor fallon to agree to being the cochair. I want to thank the secretary for his remarks and for agreeing to remain afterwards to engage in dialogue with all of us. Im a little bit torn because i learned just as we walked in that hes a big Philadelphia Eagles fan who, yeah, governor, yeah, see . Well, im getting over it. But the Veterans Administration needs no introduction, so mine will be brief. The va impacts the lives of our veterans in so many ways, and in addition to its vital services, the va means something deeply special to our veterans. It is the fulfillment of a sacred promise that their country made to them. They stepped forward to protect and defend our country in a time of need. Some returned relatively unscathed from their service. Many, however, carry physical and psychic wounds which will plague them for the rest of their lives. Now they are in need. They need health care services, disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education assistance, home loans, life insurance. How well the va provides those and other services defines for them how well their country is upholding its end of the compact that they made when they were inducted. Mr. Secretary, ill begin the introduction initially and ask governor fallon to come up. But want to thank you and acknowledge the enormous responsibility that you undertake to ensure that your some 377,000 employees are providing the services that our 18. 5 million veterans expect and believe they have earned, they have earned and believe they deserve. The secretarys most annual performance report describes fiscal report for the department of Veterans Affairs. We have drafted a new Strategic Plan for fy 2018 to 24 that reimagines our relationship with veterans and how we serve them. As a result, the metrics we track will change significantly in some instances. That statement leaves much to the imagination and has triggered a multitood of reactions and over reactions. When i asked my minnesota Veterans Organization leaders what i should ask the secretary, my number one response was, are you going to privatize the va . So, i hope you, sir, will use this opportunity to provide a clearer picture of what you intend the va to transition to, how it will affect the day to day interface that each veteran will have with your organization, and how it will improve the quality of services they will receive. The but first let me turn it over to cochair governor fallon. [ applause ] thank you, governor day ton, and welcome to everyone. We appreciate you joining us here today for this very important discussion about our veterans in america and how we as governors and appellate can better serve our veterans to make sure they get the care and services they deserve. The men and women that serve in our military put their lives on the line. They give up their holidays, birthdays, and births of their children, anniversaries and miss all kinds of important events in their life and, of course, every time they put on that uniform and they go into harms way, they put their lives at stake. And we owe them as a nation and we owe them as governors and as citizens of our state to take care of our veterans. When theyre finished with their service to our nation. Now, their service doesnt just stop and their harms way doesnt just stop once the person leaves the battle field. It also carries on once theyre home. And many times there are many different issues that our veterans face that they need our help with. And were looking forward to hearing secretary schulkin and his discussion about the administrations plans and his plans as the secretary of the Veterans Department of how we can better care for our veterans and service their needs. Mr. Secretary, we are looking forward to hearing your comments about how we can improve the delivery of health care, how we can improve the delivery of cost that affects our states and our nations, how we can improve our infrastructure with our Veterans Homes and the quality of care that they receive. We certainly are all faced with problems ever homelessness among our veterans, with suicide prevention, which we all care deeply about having sufficient programs. Education and training is also very important to our veterans when they come home and if they enter into the prime sector to be able to work and find a job to support themselves and their families. And, of course, just getting through the system. The timeliness of services and being able to wade through all the paperwork and agencies that they deal with. Health services are certainly critical to our veterans and the care and treatment of issues they may need some extra help with. And of course we cant forget the families, the military spouses that transfer from the military Service Person to different communities and being able to find the right types of jobs and getting the licenses they need. In particular, i had the opportunity to talk with the secretary a few moments ago about Substance Abuse issues. I was telling him we just finished a panel about prescription drugs and Substance Abuse issues many times over the course of this weekend. And im very encouraged the Veterans Department and the secretarys focus on Substance Abuse and veterans courts and how we can help keep our veterans out of the criminal Justice System by being able to divert them away from that from Substance Abuse and treatment for some issues that they may have. So, mr. Secretary, i know that our governors are willing and excited to be able to engage with you to work with you. We want to take care of our veterans and give them the type of respect and care that they deserve in the service to our nation. So, we appreciate you taking time away from your very busy schedule. Secretary of one of our most departments in our nation and we ke welcome you to the National Governors association. Please welcome mr. David [ applause ] thank you. Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everybody, and governor dayton, governor fallon, thank you for those comments. I appreciate it. And also i think i want to have a chance to just update you as both our governors have said, but were going to have a chance to hear from you and some questions and some interaction which i really look forward to. Its the way i learn best. Just this past month i had a chance to meet with the directors of your state Veterans Homes and later on this week im going to have a chance to meet with your state directors of Veterans Affairs. So, the more interaction that i can hear and we have a chance to share about whats happening in your states and how we can better support you in both of our support of our veterans, its really important. I always like to start with why we do this, and it really is our mission. As you probably remember or have heard from history, right before his second inaugural address, president lincoln gave the country this mission that it really is our responsibility to care for him or her who have borne the battle and to be able to be there for them when they come back home and their families. Thats what we try to do every day. This past year weve had some really important accomplishments. 11 bills that have passed through congress, the president has signed, are all done in a bipartisan way. We have, i always say, the best committees in congress because they work on the issues. They dont let politics get in the way. They focus on veterans. And because of that, weve done some pretty important things i think for veterans. We are focusing a lot on how we support them. We have a new family care giver Advisory Group and were so fortunate senator Elizabeth Dole has agreed to chair that for us. We launched the 24 7 veterans hot line that goes into the white house and that is an important way for us to get information directly to get the support of the white house. As you know, we have expanded our g. I. Bill now to provide more education benefits thats happening in your states. That was terrific. We changed the appeals law to modernize it. Last time it was updated was 1933. And were making important progress there ill talk about. Were continuing to get our Choice Program working better, and already we have extended and expanded the amount of support to get veterans care in the community. I have expanded care, Mental Health care to those other than honorably discharged. What most people dont realize is 15 of people who leave the Service Leave with an other than Honorable Discharge and they dont have access to health care, particularly Mental Health care. So, we have begun to address that. The president just signed an executive order that 100 of Service Members who leave will have Mental HealthCare Coverage for 12month period of time. Only 40 today who leave the service have access to Va Health Care services. So thats going to be 100 . And weve just released a national i. D. Card for veterans. But really, were here to talk about how we can Work Together better and thats so important to us to be a better partner to you. We understand your role in caring for veterans is essential. 50 of all veterans across the nation are in your facilities in longterm care. We also know that we can work with you using Technology Like telehealth to reach into those facilities and were beginning to do that. We have about 13 states that now have access to our telehealth expertise clinically and we want to expand that to give all of you that type of care. The state veteran homes are working with the federal government in important areas to improve safety, like falls initiatives, to prevent falls in your state Veterans Homes and thats something that we think is going to make a big difference. Some states, and i cant name them all, i dont have the time, Like Washington state is working with us where were putting a clinic right on the state Veterans Home ground so we can provide Mental Health services and this type of partnership i think works really well. And in terms of getting claims faster, texas and california, but many, many others working with us to get that backlog down. I think you probably know about our work with you in the Veterans Cemetery program. We have awarded 766 million to states to help support getting cemeteries, every single state in the country has a va cemetery. And some states, i think that theres five no, four states that have five veteran cemeteries. Arizona, missouri, maryland and maine. We have six more currently under construction throughout the country and two states this year opened up cemeteries. New mexico and mississippi. So, the way that this works is that if you provide us the land, we will be able to provide you support to develop it, open it, and work with you. So, thats an opportunity i think for us to all plan ahead. Theres 109 of them as i said. You can see where your state is, how many there are, but its a very Successful Program this collaboration that we have with you. Were also working with you to end vet ral homelessness. Three states have already ended Veterans Homelessness, more than 50 communities have announced an end to veteran homelessness. Nationally we had close to 50 reduction in the number of Homeless Veterans over the last five years. But still we have 45,000 veterans in this country who are homeless, and so we know that the only way we can tackle this is by working closely with local communities and states to Work Together in a collaborative way. And we are committed. Were putting more money into this in this budget. Were focusing and refocussing our efforts on what we know works and what doesnt work. I dont need to tell you that our veterans are getting older. The population is getting older. You know that by looking at your own data. But that means that its pretty predictable that when people get older theyre going to need our help more in terms of support services. And weve modelled this out that the growth in longterm care and working with you in the states is going to be even higher in the next decade to come. And so we have to do this in a smarter way. The way that were focused on this is that ive identified five priorities and i just want to briefly touch on these so you know where were focusing our efforts and see whether its also hitting on things that you think are important to you, because we may need to make some adjustments. The first of the five priorities is to give our veterans greater choice. And that means that we believe that they should be involved in where they get there are care, decisions about where they get their care, and how they get their care, and how they get their services. And were trying to change our current systems from being very rules based, administrative based, they need to be 40 miles way, wait 30 days before you can get access to the ability to get choice, to a more clinically driven system. The type of system i run as a ceo in the private sector where we focus on whats the right thing to do for our patients and our veterans. And so were working with congress right now. We have 26 rsos avsos to give vs a greater choice. The second of the priorities is to modernize our systems. I was talking to governor fallon and she said, you know, our facilities are pretty old. And more than 50 of our facilities are 60 years old or more. So, were focused on that. One of the decisions that i just recently made was to scrap our home grown old Electronic Health record and select a modern, off the shelf electronic record. It happens to be the same one the department of defense uses which, looking back in history, weve been trying to do for 17 years, get these systems to talk. And weve spent over a billion dollars getting two systems to talk and we still cant do it. So, why dont we just otheuse t system theyre using and get to a modern system. Thats what were doing. Were trying to modernize our facilities. I was telling governor fallon were trying to do do something now in tulsa like this. This is the facility in palo alto. This is the type of facility you and your family want to be in, a place they can stay with you, single rooms, pleasant. We want this for all of our va facilities and now we are beginning to do that. For the first time in over three years, Congress Worked with us to get 28 new leases out in your communities. Were looking at doing business differently by working with the private sector to build with them, not have federal construction be the only way of building new facilities. We think we can do it faster and cheaper by working with the private sector. Im also eliminating old and unused buildings. No sense paying for maintenance of vacant buildings, unutilized buildings. Ive announced 1100 or 1200 vacant unutilized buildings, weve already eliminated a couple hundred but were going to continue to do that. The infrastructure bill that was recently talked about, while it doesnt have money for va, it allows us to take the proceeds from what we get rid of and reinvest it in your facilities that we know veterans need to modernize those facilities. So we think that is an important tool. The third of the 5th priorities is to just improve the timeliness of our services. 97 of all of our appointments are completed within 30 days. 86 within 7 days, 21 are done on the same day basis. We have established same day services for primary care Mental Health in every one of our Va Medical Center facilities now. So, if you have an urgent issue in primary care Mental Health, same day services are available. We also are the only Health System in the country that im aware of and no one has proven me wrong yet, that publishes our weigh wait times. You can see it updated every two weeks in real time. Whether the good, bad, two week. Whether theyre good, bad, need a lot of work to develop, were sharing that data with our veterans so they have information about how to make choices about their decisions and so we can focus on improvement. No other Health System does this. We know from data that has been studied that while v. A. Still has access problems in particular locations, overall, v. A. Wait times are shorter than the private sector. Im sure you get calls saying hey, friend, family is sick. Can you help me get them an appointment at a place . We all know that still is a challenge in the private sector, but v. A. Wait times tend to be up to 40 better than in many parts of the country that struggle with shortages of primary care. Were also doubling down on technology. Nobody is doing more telehealth in this country than the v. A. Over a billion dollars a year. 730,000 veterans getting their health care through telehealth. Im the first secretary that still practices medicine. Im talking to one of my patients on the screen. Hes in oregon. Ive never been there, but thats where i see patients from my office in washington. And using our federal supremacy licensing, we are able to use v. A. Clinicians from new york city or chicago to any part of the country that doesnt have access to super specialists, or in my case im a primary care doctor. Were using this to address the wait time and access issue. The fourth and fifth priorities is focusing on the things most important to veterans that they need the v. A. To be not only good at but world class. Traumatic brain injury, ptsd. S prosthetics, spinal cord injury. Thats what they need the v. A. To be really good at. Were focusing our resources for that. Were sharing our quality compared to the private sector. If you go to our website in your communities, you can see where t v. A. Is on standardized quality measures and compare it to your local community to see if were better. Were not always better. Thats where we need to focus our efforts to get there. I announced a moon shoot. This is to make sure that every veteran has the opportunity to stay in their home as long as they want to using technology, using our homebase services, using care givers, the v. A. Support care givers, we want to expand our support for that. But that the home is really an environment where many people want to remain and we want to support our veterans and the way they want to be cared for. Were doing things like focusing our resources on things that matter to veterans. Hepatitis c, veterans have a bigger incidence of it. About 18 months ago there were close to 160,000 veterans with hepatitis c. We are soon going to be at 20,000 or less. We are going to be the first system in the country that is targeted this disease and going to eliminate it from the entire population of veterans. Everyone who wants to be treated, and thats the way that you focus our resources to make sure were doing right things by veterans. The governor talked about the opioid crisis. We are the only system in the country who publishes our opioid use rates. I want you guys to get your hospitals and your doctor groups to publish their prescribing rates. V. A. Is doing it. Go to our website. You can click on any one of your sites, any v. A. , and you can see the opioid prescription rates. I know who the highest in the country is. I know who the lowest in the country is. You should know where your v. A. Hospitals are and your other facilities. This is really important that we get this right for veterans but also for all americans. The fifth and final priority is to prevent suicide. 20 veterans a day taking their life through suicide. Its a number thats unacceptable to you, unacceptable to me. We have to do better. What this slide shows is if veterans get their care in the v. A. System, if we can get them to get help, it saves lives. Look at the bottom of the line, female veterans. Over the last 14 years if you were a female veteran getting care in the system, your rate of suicide went down 5. 4 . If you were out in the Community Maybe not getting care at all, unfortunately, your rate went up 8 1. 6 . We can save lives by working together to get people the help they need. When theyre isolated and hopeless, were not doing any good. People are dying every day. If this were cancer and we knew there was a treatment to help them stay alive, wed be doing that. We need to do the same thing. We have a Campaign Call called bethere. Tom hanks is our national spokesperson. Were working with local communities to get that message out to save lives to prevent suicide. Finally let me mention as we go into budget season and im starting to present the president s budget before congress, this is a strong budget. This is a budget that reflects the president s commitment to doing better for veterans. 198 billion. But this is investing in both improving the infrastructure of the v. A. But also giving veterans greater choice out in the community. And i think its the right balance that is going to be meaningful to veterans. My last slide really is since we dont have a stock price as a company, i cant track that the way that Corporate Organization would. Our stock price, our Dow Jones Industrial index, if you would, is the trust that veterans have in the v. A. It was at a low in 2014 after our wait time crisis in phoenix of 46 . Today its at 70 . Thats not good enough. Were not happy with that. But its showing that were moving in the right direction. That through transparency, like posting our wait times or opioid rates or accountability actions, talking about the problems that are significant and real that we have to work on together, that thats a formula for beginning to regain some of that trust and were going to stick at this and continue to make progress with all of your help. I should mention that your feedback to me really does matter. Governor scott had come to me about a year ago and said you know, you guys dont make our life easier. You give us money for state Veterans Homes, yet, it comes with rules and regulations. You tell us we have to build the greenhouse model, single rooms and it cost us a fortune. Just let us do what we think is right, and i eliminated all the federal regulations. Were now using your state regulations. You can build a greenhouse model if you want. But if you think its better to use your money in a different way, were following your guidance and rules and well provide you the money to do what you think is right for your citizens. That was very helpful feedback to me. I dont know all these things that your state directors know or that you know. So please i hope you understand i am committed to working with you. So that together we can do the right thing for the people that have defended us. Thank you very much, and glad to take any questions. Let me start, mr. Secretary. You talk about the Financial Assistance and focus on nursing homes. Were looking to increase a number of seniors in assisted living as well as keeping them in their homes. I dont know if your Financial Assistance has kept pace with that trend. Yeah. You will see that we are trying to in the president s budget increase the amount of funding, first. Secondly, in talking to some of the state Veterans Homes that i did earlier this month, they told me there are things that we can do like make it easier for you to establish adult day care programs. Right now, i guess we make it pretty tough. Our regulations prevent you from doing that. If we can do things like that, we can keep people out of institutions and support them in ways that, frankly, we want to take the lead from what you want to do. So were looking for new ways. Were looking to keep people in their homes where possible. Were looking to support you because theres certain people that arent going to be able to remain in their homes so youll have a valuable role. And were looking to decrease bureaucracy to allow you to function in a way you want to function. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Secretary. We appreciate you being here to answer questions. You and i were talking earlier about Substance Abuse oibd addiction and our veterans who for some reason enter into your criminal Justice System. We were talking about a unique situation you have with veterans and those incarcerated to have a buddy system as we have in your state. Could you talk about the models you see across the nation to help those who are incarcerated. I think we have 342 veteran treatment courts all located in your communities, and what they do is as governor fallin knows, they tried to find alternatives to prison where the crime that has been committed is nonviolent and related, obviously, to either a persons psychiatric or mental condition or substance or drug abuse. Why put them in a prison when what they really need is treatment . These are often treatable diseases. We get them right into or the judges allow us to get them right into intensive treatments. And this program has shown that the recidivism rate one year after has a 80 reduction. Its the right thing to do for veterans and the tax payers and the states shouldering that burden. So we think its a very successful model. It can be applied outside of veterans, of course. But theyre working in your communities. Were working to expand that. Even in the prisons as governor fallin was talking about where we cohort veterans together, they seem to dedrees kroocreaser of problems in the prison. Theres a certain order in a cohort of people that are used to understanding each other. I think there are a lot of lessons as we look toward Prison Reforms and getting people treatment for addiction. Were open to learning more from all of you. A couple of quick questions. One, 1200 facilities. Putting that money back into updating existing and those that maintain. Is there any correlation between the shutdown in a state and the money goes back to the state, or is it an omnibus type approach . Right now under current law the money goes back to the u. S. Treasury. Perfect. So what the president is hoping to do under the infrastructure law is to allow it to be targeted to help veterans. And if we can get that through, as you know, the infrastructure bill is an idea, not a reality. But if we can get that through, i think then wed be open to lots of discussions about how we can use that money locally. Outstanding. I wanted to talk to you about the efforts to eradicate hepatitis c in the population youre referring to. Its a fairly audacious junt undertake and you seem confident youre close to doing to. Can you talk to us about that . Was it done initially as a pilot . What drugs or Drug Companies are you working with . Id be curious as to how youve undertaken that. First, what weve done is and were doing this all in suicide. Were proactively reaching out. Were not waiting for people to come to us and say we heard you have a new drug that can cure this disease. Remember, the drugs now have a 95 cure rate. So we are we have teams of pharmacists that weve trained, largely pharmacists, that are reaching out to veterans, calling them in, explaining what the options are, and overseeing a compliance program, because these are not onetime drugs. You have to use them over the course of a couple months. So i think thats whats different. Ive been a doctor a long time. Ive run hospitals in some of your states. And we dont usually reach out to people. We wait until they call us, but the v. A. Is reaching out. When we started this program, there was one drug company, gilead. The price was pretty high. V. A. Does better than anybody else in terms of pricing. But when others have entered the market with the similar type, the prices have dropped. We now work with and use multiple Drug Companies. The prices are less than half of when we started this program. It just allows us to be able to reach out more and get this done even faster. So the interesting thing that were finding is that there is a population of veterans that while they could be cured are choosing not to take the drug. Were trying to understand that. Its sort of like what we find in homelessness. Even though we can offer some Veterans Homes, they want to stay out on the streets. Small number, but its not insignificant. And so were trying to understand how we can do better with that. We share our lessons with the General Community, because i think its going to be a problem in the General Community as well. Thank you very much for being with us and sharing some of the data. I know on one of the slides you talked about the appeal process and also reviewing files. I absolutely urge that be engaged in an ongoing basis. We clearly separated people from the military service primarily due to Mental Health challenges and in many of those cases, its tremendously unfair and leads to suicide and other behaviors. I also want to say we very much appreciate the assistance. We were the first state to end chronic homelessness in the country. One of three to end homelessness among veterans and that is defined as folks who will access the assistance you give. But i will also tell you that we do ongoing outreach to people who refuse to take the help. Weve had a pretty good rate of folks changing their mind. I do want to touch on the issue of incarcerated veterans. And share with you, you may already be aware, we have opened in our prisons a series of Reintegration Centers. One is devoted to veterans calling upon the best days of their life as they prepare to reenter society. Most of our veterans in that center spend the last six months or six to 18 months of their period of incarceration, and what were seeing in that Reintegration Center is folks who are substantially better prepared to reenter a broader society. And quite frankly are calling upon their experiences that got them to a level of establishment that perhaps they havent seen in a long time. In the extent you all could reach out on a bigger basis, i think, to corrections officials in the country, i think that could pay big dividends. Weve seen it in connecticut, and i think it would be helpful. The other one point on one of the things weve also done is tried to make sure that no one j veteran or otherwise, leaves prison who has had a heroin problem leaves without access to medicaid, medically assisted support. And we also have seen that thats demonstrated great, great results, very different outcomes, three months later, six months later, a year later with respect to staying out of prison. And i think we owe it to our veterans to do everything we can to keep them out of prison, and i courage you to reach out to that group of commissioners across the United States that are doing some of these things but thank you for your service. Yeah. I really was going to say the same thing to you, governor, which is these types of impressive gains that you made in your state is really thanking you and your administration, because theres no way v. A. Can do this alone or the states. These are communityled efforts that achieve as you said, what youve been able to do in homelessness and what youre doing in the prisons is impressive. And so my fellow governors, to share one thought. We made it a priority with our local housing authorities to add veterans as a preferred or first among the First Service groups to gain housing when it was available. And it was like a light switch being thrown. Of course people want to do it once they realized that a, you thought they should do it and b, they could do it. And a good part of what we were we built a lot of additional housing. That certainly is building 22,000 units of or funding that additional housiing has helped. But highlighting how important it was to the communities and organizations was a big part of that success as well. Thank you. Great. We have ten minutes left. A pennsylvania team, the eagles, second, we do need to do our best to honor our veterans once they come back. I think thats a partnership that the states and the federal government needs to work on. One of the things that governor fallon pointed out in the introduction of you was the need for states to Work Together to make sure that especially spouses of military folks have we have some coordination of the licensing and certification. Is that an issue you can help us with . Were working on that. I think youre right. You all know this. I dont want to Say Something that you already know. But when somebody serves their country, its not just them. Its their entire family. And the stress that families are under when their spouses are deployed is incredible. So we have an obligation, and we are looking at ways to be able to help that, and many of our employment efforts now that were at a 2. 7 Unemployment Rate for veterans better than the general population is now helping spouses achieve that meaningful employment as well. So absolutely. Thank you, governor. Thank you, mr. Secretary. Im over here. Appreciate your visit to the Medical Center and your great work. I was in congress when we created the Choice Program, and the last update i got was that there was a similar delay in getting folks going through the Choice Program to get access to those appointments because they had to go through some kind of intermediary. Could you comment on that, please . Well, i consider what you did in congress in response to a crisis for the Choice Program pretty miraculous. I think it was the right thing to do, and we stood up a program from zero to national 90 days. But even with as well thought out as it was, weve learned a lot of problems with the program. Its natural. First thing we learned is we have seven different ways of paying for veterans to go into the community. Thats expensive. Complex. No one understands it, especially veterans. We have a new piece of legislation working with the house and the senate to combine it into one program. Secondly, we designed this so we put a third party, a third party administrator, there are two in fact country, health net and tri west, right in the middle of the veteran and the v. A. And not too many businesses know they stay in business outsource customer service. It just doesnt work. So were bringing that back in. Or at least this is our proeppol in congress. We know the veterans. They know and trust their staff. What we want to use a third party for are things we dont do well. Paying bills, credentialing and keeping the network up with providers all over the country. We dont do that well. We really want to be care coordinating and touching our veterans because thats what were in the business of doing. Weve taken the lessons over the last three years and a lot of problems, and were working with congress now to launch a new program. This is the one with the 26 vsos have endorsed. Our committees are working through their proper processes. Thank you. Governor walker. Thank you very much, mr. Secretary for your presentation. It was absolutely excellent. I didnt take a picture of your slides. Id like to get a copy if i could. Of course. One that i have one question because of time. Were trying to develop a veteran cemetery in fair banks. One of the requirements, we have the land. We have to build a road to your specifications. A road in alaska is different than a road in other places. Is there any waiver potential to have an alaskan road put in rather than you know, governor, senator sullivan made me come to alaska which i was glad to do to make this point. Unless youre up there and you see and you understand how different it is, its easy to sit in washington and say everyone should be the same. So i am very open to considering waivers. Very good. I just need you to tell me what you need me to do because i dont know what you know. Lets Work Together on that. I want to see you youre not going to recommend something if its not the right thing. So were not here to second guess you. Were here to support you and well do that. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you mr. Secretary for being here. Ill be quick. If you could expand quickly on the opportunities for assisted living, particularly with the aging veterans so they could stay at their hopes and secondly, extending you an invitation, were opening a new Veterans Home in reno later this year and it would be an honor if you could attend. Great. Thank you for that. This moon shot of trying to help veterans and frankly all americans be able to remain in their home if thats their choice to do, which, i dont have too many patients who say do doc, help me find a nursing home. I think were at a breaking point right now that we can do this. So with Remote Monitoring capabilities, with telehealth into peoples homes, sometimes or more often on their mobile phones or i pads, with home care visits like va does, home specially care, aid and attendance subpoenas and care givers, remember, the v. A. Supports 27,000 care givers that have stay with veterans in their homes. Even animals, dogs are super important for mobility and now emotional support issues. There are ways that we can build a system around our veterans and let them remain in the settings they want. I think its cheaper. I think its better. And were going to take it as a moon shot. Were not there right now. But i think we can do it together. Wed like to work with all of you. Thats why ive been talking to your directors and state Veterans Homes about doing this together. Thats where they said, look, help us clean up adult day care because thats part of the solution. We want to be a partner with you in it. I think wed be doing a good thing and then leading away for the rest of americans who deserve the same. Great. Mr. Secretary, thank you very, very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. [ applause ] well have Closing Remarks and then a resolution to present. I think we heard some great information about what the Veterans Affairs missions are and what their priorities are to help our states and hopefully they heard great comments about the governors and how to Work Together. A great start. Governor malloy . Thank you. Many of us have had the privilege of both knowing and working general tim loanberg who passed away unexpectedly this past summer. Among his many distinctions he was a general of Washington State and one of the Founding Fathers of the counsel of governors in which governor fallon and myself have had the privilege of heading. He was instrumental in the creation of the dual status commander. And in establishing the National Guard as a cyber work force. A force, i should say. He was also an active voice for defending the guard from dramatic cuts to forced structure and to support structural and operational capabilities. Anyone who had the privilege of working with him can attest to the impact that the general had on the National Guard and ensuring its continued strategic and operational importance in the offense. We approved a resolution honoring the life of the general, and i bring it before this body and ask for your consideration. It reads in part, the generals service was exemplary. Hes widely praised by governors and the communities in hechlt supported by the state of washington and homeland securitied a vie or the for 14 years. Helped to establish the counsel of governors and established the Governors Association as a consultant. He truly honored the model of service over self throughout his long service to the nation. I now offer that as a motion and ask that we approve the resolution. Second . Any discussion . All in favor . Motion prevails. Thank you. Anything else before the committee . All right, were adjourned. Thank you. Now a look at innovation and Higher Education from the winter nga meeting. This is included michael crow and kevin