Dedicated to serving them. Thats what va is to veterans and thats why you dont find veterans demanding Community Care as the only choice. The demand for that only choice comes from elsewhere. It doesnt come from veterans. Veterans know better. I have tested this during my time as secretary, when somebody tells me that veterans should only have the choice of the Choice Program, i ask them are you a veteran . And by and large the answer is no. And then i ask to be here in between votes and, mr. Secretary, pleasure that you are here with us as well. I have a specific set of circumstances that ive addressed to you in a letter and want to follow up in this setting today. And i have no doubt but what you and other officials at the va are sympathetic and concerned and want to resolve the circumstances we find ourselves in with a particular employee at a particular va hospital in our state. We have the circumstance just to set the background for my questions, we face one of the worst examples
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
Captioning performed by vitac major and minor construction, leasing and nonrecurring maintenance make up the four cornerstones of vas capital infrastructure. While congress and va need to realign s. K. I. P. Process to allow va to enter into Public Private partnerships both publicly and federally, the right size va footprint it must continue to fund the projects that are partially funded today and begin advance planning on the projects that we know va needs to fund in the near future. Currently there are 30 Major Construction projects that are
Particularly at sections 101 and 102, which deal with residency slots, the use of provisions of regulations that we feel strongly that these would be a positive aspect to allow us to develop more residencesy programs in va to have the potential to recruit residents from those programs to provide care for veterans. I think also looking at section 300, which deals with additional provisions that put Network Directors and Medical Center directors under title 38 and allow us to be more competitive as we recruit in all localities and address complexity challenges that are facing a number of our locations, these are all going to be very positive actions that will help us i think be competitive in the Health Care Market today. Im going to join as a cosponsor of this measure. I think it is absolutely vital and i thank to thank senator tester for his leadership. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Senator rounds, followed by senator tester. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I just wanted to followup also on senato
Front line defenders on the war on sexual assault, ill say. They report to me overwhelmingly that they think were making progress on all fronts but one. And here comes the hardest of all, i think. Were definitely not satisfied. And that is the issue of retaliation. So, retaliation, by the way, can be if you report sexual assault, the boss takes some action against you, which is or feels like retaliation. Ill call that official retaliati retaliation. The other form is just when your peers in the unit kind of find out whats happened or what allegedly happened and they take sides and maybe they treat you differently or maybe people who are your friends now shun you. Ill call that unofficial retaliation. Our piggest problem is on that unofficial part, people who rush to swrujudgment to and take si who is going to replace dr. La plant as acquisition czar . Rich lombardi is now in the acting capacity. Thats dr. La plants deputy, who has floeeted up to the actig role. Beyond that well have to