has brought support from the vso. from the top vso and veteran advocates in the country and from the v.a., from secretary shulkin. it s getting kicked around right now for issues on what it is going to cost and some other political issues. just a couple weeks ago the hvac hearing got tied up in a tax debate during a veteran healthcare segment. it was a bit frustrating to see this happening. i could see that this is probably going to get passed within the next few months if we get the politics out of the way here. pete: that s the challenge. one of the democrats involved in the committee. his name is mark tacano a representative from california had this to say. we have either sound or a full screen. do we have it? roll it. this legislation is a referendum on the mistaken belief that the private sector is better equipped to care for our nation s veterans than specialized v.a. doctors. pete: he has long been an opponent of what others call reform. the idea vets shouldn t be
centers in my home town. those people are working like crazy to try to get those done. where is the enhancement of taking care of that problem? in other words, what we re trying is symptoms and not the real problem. what i was what i want to ask you about is, we ve been covering on this program the backlog and how it s increased expo tent shally since the sequester, that the va is getting farther and farther behind instead of catching up, which it had been doing. i take your point about not expanding benefits and dealing with the backlog. i m saying that congress has not made it easier to deal with the backlog. let me play a recent interview we did with paul rycroft and ask you to respond on the other side. we need congress to pick up this cause again, 400,000 vets shouldn t have to wait for paperwork. i think it underscores how far we have to go before we can honestly say we support the
during the shutdown, we had five or six troops killed on one weekend and they were not given the death benefit. we turned that around. the next question, what about the backlog? the sequester has cut every department across the board and now the progress that was being made on that ridiculous backlog on claims has just gone back in the other direction. that s right, it s stalled since november. you have been great in covering this and we appreciate that. we need everybody to refocus on it. it s stalled. 400,000 vets still stuck in the backlog and washington is not getting it done. the president briefly mentioned it in the state of the union but that wasn t enough. we need concrete action and him personally focused on it and congress to pick up the cause again, 400,000 vets shouldn t have to wait for paperwork. it underscores how far we have to go before we can honestly say we support the troops. what i think congress is seeing, veterans group saying in the marine corps, no better fri