[applause] the third base of that agenda is support our veterans. veterans are the backbone and the spine of this country. they are the best of us. i have always believed that we have a sacred obligation to put those we send to war and care for their family when they come home. providing assistant and job training and housing an out helping low income veterans get va care debt-free. our troops in iraq and afghanistan had faced many dangers paid one being stationed in phases breathing in toxic smoke from burn pits. many of you have been there. i ve been in and out of iraq and afghanistan over 40 times. these burn pits that incinerate waste, the waste of war, medical
accurate and a mixed bag. veterans like va care when they get it but getting it is hard. that differs by city. leo, want to respond to that? just to say paul s point we re five months into the mission act here and we have heard very positive reviews up to this point. we don t know what the long-term impact is going to be. right now we have not seen skyrocketing folks moving from va into the private sector, but it s hard to say where that s going to go in the next two, three, five, ten years. you know, to paul s point, i think there are a lot of things that va can say are better. there s a lot of metrics they can point to and policy changes that have been made in the last few years that are positive. i don t know if this is fundamentally a different department than a few years ago. it s incremental improvements. we ve had multiple va secretaries. david shulkin got fired on twitter or resigned.
appreciate you joining us and thank you for your service. let s get off the bat these new standards, that will be the case of veteran had a 30 minute drive time or 20 day wait time offering extended access to urgent care clinic, and the bulk of the co-pay cost. these moves, a move in the right direction? definitely, i think so. i retired from the marine corps in 2013 and when i left the service i was told it would be months before i could get access to va care. this is 2013. this is operation iraqi and enduring freedom. and then afghanistan in 2010. payback from there and in
trouble. that was accentuated by movies, coming home. and i fire back at the union for saying that. our veterans, as you said to come out there, they are employed in contributing to society. they are not broke. this is not the 1970s when my own father, as a senior officer second navy airborne division was not allowed to wear his uniform off of the post in north carolina back in those days. sandra: you clearly feel strongly about the progress the secretary of the va. and foxnews.com, mr. secretary, the va making real progress suicide prevention for veterans. in that piece, you talk about the statistics. tragically, an average of 20 veterans died by suicide each day. of those 20, 14 have not received recent va care. there are still huge challenges you face at the va. what are they? that challenges our outreach. thanks to the president and to
he certainly has his hands full. vacancy, a lot of workers, budget short fall. but if you re an american veteran, a what s your biggest problem with the va now? it s access to care. va mission act that supposed to help resolve that, sun set the controversial choice program as you outlined earlier, that s something that our veterans tell us is their biggest challenge, getting va care, getting into the system. that s one of the biggest challenges he needs to reduce along with the suicide rates within our community. he also needs to really heavily focus on suicide prevention. seeing all the challenges, why is privatization such a bad move? privatization of the va would be disastrous in that it would send millions out in the u.s. health care system costing