At the same time, weve had a large increase in care in the community, choice hasnt worked as intended. Here are some things were doing to fix it. On april 24th we changed the measure from Straight Line to driving distance. Using the fastest route. This roughly doubles the number of veterans eligible for the 40mile program under choice. Excuse me. But there is much more to do. A followon mailing to all eligible veterans is about to go out. Weve Just Launched a major change in internal processes to make choice the default option for care in the community. Additional staff training and communication extensive provider communications, improvement to the website and ramped up social networking. New mechanisms together, timely feedback. Directly from both veterans as well as from front line staff. These are all, already in place or about to launch. In the longer term, we must rationalize Community Care into a single channel. The different programs with different rules and reimbursement rates
Affairs adviser for concerned veterans for america. Joseph violante, National Legislative director of disabled american veterans. Mr. Bill raush who is missing in action right now. Or awol. Political director for iraq and afghanistan veterans of america, and carlos fuentes, senior legislative associate for the veterans of foreign wars. Well start with you, mr. Butler. Chairman, Ranking Member blumenthal, and distinguished members of the committee, on behalf of our national commander, michael ham, and the 2. 3 million members of the American Legion, we thank you for this opportunity to testify regarding the American Legions views of the progress of the veterans Choice Program. The American Legion supported the veterans access choice and accountability act of 2014 as a means of addressing emerging problems within the department of veterans affairs. Va wait times for appointment medical care had reached an unacceptable level nationwide as veterans struggle to receive access to Timely Heal
Disease and you dont have money to treat them and, frankly, i think its time to talk to the manufacturer of this drug and ask them if they are being very generous in providing these drugs, hepatitis c drugs, for free. Very generous. For whatever reasons they are doing that. But maybe at a time when their profits are soaring, maybe they might want to respect the veterans of this country who might die or become much sicker because they dont have access to this wonderful product. And as senator blumenthal mentioned, if they are not prepared to come to the table you think youve done well by getting the prices down by half, im not impressed. Paying 540 bucks per pill for people who defended our country. You sit down with them and say youre prepared to use 28 usc 1498 to break the patterns on these drugs unless they are prepared to come down significantly lower than they are right now. Its not a question of taking money. I know youve requested to take money out of the Choice Program. Maybe t
Administration doesnt want the American People to see. The president S Health Care law has been a failure, cant be fixed just by delaying one more part or by sending out the spin doctors one more time or by having one more press conference. I hope that when we return after the new year that president obama and democrats in congress will be ready to sit down with republicans to talk about real Bipartisan Solutions that puts patients and families first. Thank you, madam president. I yield the floor. Note the absence of a quorum. The presiding officer the clerk will call the roll. The presiding officer the senator from oklahoma. Mr. Coburn i ask unanimous consent the quorum call be vitiated. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Coburn i wanted to spend a few minutes talking about the bill that were going to be voting on this afternoon. Im in my 10th year starting my 10th year in the senate and during that period of time, my numberone goal in coming to the senate was to try to righ
Jon childish words, popping up on buildings and signs all over. Police say theres nothing funny about this. You can see behind me the discolored bricks, that graffiti has already been cle cheers and applause stephen tonight, health care for our armed forces. Does obama remember to do scheduled maintenance on our drones . laughter then are some questions better left unanswered . And my guest, the honorable ray mabus is the United States secretary of navy. I will ask him cheers and applause laughter the Restaurant Industry says fast food workers could soon be replaced by robots. Unfortunately, even robots cant live on minimum wage. This is the colbert report. Captioning sponsored by Comedy Central cheers and applause stephen welcome to the respect, everybody. Thank you so much. Stephen Stephen Stephen Stephen Stephen Stephen Stephen thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you so much. Welcome to the report. Thank you for joining us. cheers and applause . Folks folks, i gotta tell you, ive