Veterans crisis hotline. This hearing is just under 2 1 2 hours hours. Good morning. Today, we are pleased to welcome back a good friend dr. David shulkin, the new secretary of the department of veteran aff r affairs and the last time that you appeared before our committee, you were a v. A. Undersecretary for health and now kicked upstairs after a Unanimous Senate confirmation vo vote, and let me repeat it is uniu mouse, and that is going to say a lot in this political environment, and so congratulations. With your Extensive Health background, i know that you have a great background in the philadelphia area, and i learned that you were in marstown, and in the district for some time, and so you bring a lot of exfeerns the job, and these days the challenges are daunting for you. We realize that the hear sung usual. Rather than the typical Budget Hearing that we have at this time of the year, we are limited to the discussion of the skinny budget, and the skinny budget and the materials th
Thank you for being here today, mr. Secretary. Thank you for coming today. Bringing you cast of thousands. Youve got a lot of support here today. Big budget, big support. Were proud to have secretary mcdonald be here today. We were proud to have in order danny, doctor, thanks. Ronald waters. Laverne counsel. Ed murray. We appreciate all of you. With all that support, mr. Secretary, im sure youre going to do a great job. Ill make my Opening Statement and then turn to blumenthal then to your testimony. I dont want you to feel compelled by any fiveminute light. I want you to say what youve got to say. I understand the average Attention Span of the United States senator is about nine minutes. After that we all start blinking. Speaking for myself. Thats selfimposed limitation. Thank you very much, mr. Secretary, for being here today. Were looking forward to discussing the 182 billion budgetary appropriation. It would be an 8. 9 increase. Should it be adopted, medical funding would increase
Wednesday morning a house subcommittee hears from attorney general Loretta Lynch on the justice departments 2017 budget request. Thats live at 10 30 a. M. On cspan 3. Homeland security secretary jeh johnson returns to capitol hill to talk about his departments Budget Proposal for the 2017 year and the Senate Homeland security subcommittee hearing live tomorrow on cspan 3 at 2 15 p. M. Eastern. I am trying still to decide which candidate to support. Im trying to decide between the governors who have executive experience or some of the other candidates like ted cruz and marco rubio. The most important issue to me is national service. There are more than 5 million Young Americans that are ready to step forward and serve t country for a year with americans like the peace corps and youth build. Veterans affair secretary Robert Mcdonald will testify outcan loined the budget request for his department. He was followed by a panel of veteran Services Organization representatives with their take
Infrastructure to deliver that care. Within the v. A. Within the v. A. But where we cant justify that business decision we need to be outsourcing. And just one more thing that follows up with that. In another year you guys are probably going to be gone with the new administration. I hope not, i hope yall stay but youre probably going to be gone. Are you laying into process so that whoever takes your place assuming that youre not brought back that the transition would be seamless and the justification to keep going . Were absolutely looking at ways that we can institutionalize what were talking about doing. Thats a better word. And i would say that one of the important roles that this committee can play is to be a stalwart of continuity about some of these operational things. Youve had six or seven different outsourcing. How to make sure theres a direct connection from v. A. And Community Providers and from the business side having one pot of money for care. I think what we tried to do
Call this meeting to order. Welcome, everybody. Hope yall had a great thanksgiving and hope everybody has a wonderful Holiday Season coming up. This is a very important hearing for the United States senate. On november 4th, if my memory is correct, we had a meeting at the va. Sloane gibson, dr. Schulkin and some others were in the room. In terms of Va Health Service delivery to our veterans, veterans choice, consolidating programs, reimbursement rates so there wasnt any preference over another. A reality in our lifetime and in their lifetime. With that will come a number of decisions. This will not be the first time i heard most of this information. We had that meeting before. It will be the first time a lot of people have heard it. Of people have heard it. Of people have heard it. Of people have heard it. This is a critical there are a critical number of decisions we will have to make to make my va work. The new veterans choice work and make sure that va does what it does best well bu