Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I know its a purposeful gavel, wasnt it. Welcome to the National Press club. We have the trademark motto this worlds leading professional organization for journalists. Im jeff would baobab ballu. Candidate we are pleased to have as our headliners speaker, dr. David j. Shulkin. First of all, id like to ask you to please turn your mobile devices to vibrate. Why vibrate instead of off . Because we do encourage you tweet the modings and questions to press club using the npc live. Thats press club dc, using the hash hash npc live. Now well introduce or head table. And blows hold your applause until everyone has been introduced. The head table is usually reserved for members of the club, our guests, and guests of our headliners speaker. So, going from my far left, mike smith, ceo of green smith pr, the National Press club Headliners Team member. Jim noon. Vietnam navy veteran and commander of the American Legion post here at the National Press club, which is founded by general pershing. Myron belkin. The 107th pratt, vietnam veteran as well. The honorable john elliott, who ive been chasing around capitol hill in all kinds of places for almost 2025 years, too many years. John is the assistant secretary for mcand Intergovernmental Affairs at the United States department of Veterans Affairs. And catlyn kenny, producer at crabs radios connecting vets. Com. Thomas murphy, acting undersecretary for benefits at the u. S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Kevin wenting, mans book moore luncheons than i care to count. Captain, u. S. Navy, retired, and the National Press club headliners member who coordinated todays luncheon. Thank you. Were skipping over the speaker. You sever morton, Washington Bureau chief for the omaha world herald and a former member of the National Press christian board of governores. Writing simpson, chief of staff at the United States department of Veterans Affairs. Luke knitting, lieutenant colonel, u. S. Army retired and global war on terrorism veteran. Longtime member, John Sergeant shasbel, United States marine corps, vietnam veteran, president of the blind American Veterans foundation. Youve been a member for over 30 years, right, john . Sean buncher, Communications Manager at dave abled force u. S. A. [applause] like to acknowledge additional members of the headlinerred team for organizing the event. Betsy Fisher Martin and lisa matthews, our cochairs, jamie horowitz, lisa russo, kevin, away turner, and our press club staff, specifically lindsey underwood, laura coker and our executive direct york, william mccarran. So, secretary excuse me and radio audiences, please be aware that in the audience today are members of the general public, so any applause or reaction you may hear is not necessarily from the working press. Dr. Shulkin was nominate bid President Donald Trump to serve as the ninth Veterans Affairs or va secretary as commonly called and confirmed by the United States senate in february. Prior to his role as secretary, dr. Shulkin whats vas undersoutheast foreign actors health, 18 months, leading the nations largest integrated Health Care System with more than 1700 sites of care serving nine million veterans. Before he began his service with the va, dr. Shulkin held numerous chief executive roles at the morris town medical center, the Atlantic Health sncc, the Accountable Care organization, the Beth Israel Medical Center in yucker, held numerous physician leadership roles including chief medical officer at the university of pennsylvania health. And a fellow pennsylvanian. Always acknowledged that. Temple university hospital, Medical College of pennsylvania and held check positions include chairman of medicine at the Drexel University school of medicine. A boardcertified internist, dr. Shulkin is a fellow of the American College of physicians. And has been named one of the 50 most influential physician executives of the country and month the 100 most influence people in American Health care by modern health care with look forward to our dialogue today on the vas efforts to care for millions of American Veterans and improve the effectiveness of the va Health Care System. So, please give a warm National Press club welcome to secretary david shulkin. [applause] well, good afternoon, everybody. Its great to be here. And couldnt think of a better time to spend with you than five days before veterans day. Saturday i hope all of you are have that marked down and are planning on doing something meaningful on saturday. We have been celebrating veterans day really for 98 years. First as Armistice Day when world war i ended and then 54 years ago, changed to veterans day, and some of you may have seen before the president left for this trip to asia, that he signed a proclamation to claire the entire emergency of november veterans and military families month, which really i think is indicative of his real passion and respect for the countrys veterans, and so each day of this month, we have some Something Special going to be announced or an activity going to happen, today were here with you. That counts. But youll see things like for the first time a National Turn card for veterans being rolled out. Youll see the president S White House hotline, the 24 7 hotline answered by veterans and military families that will be rolled out in the month of november, and expansion of a new imagine cemetery in los angeles. Tomorrow will be ringing the bell on wall street in honor of veterans for the close. A Public Service announcement that is going out across the country this month, narrated by tom hanks, on reducing veteran suicide. And so the month is filled with a lot of recognitions and important events, but it really is a symbol, think, of the progress that were making in the transformation and modernization of the department, and as you know, in this during this year we have seen some pretty important changes happen at the va. We have had five major bills go through congress, particularly proud that everything that were doing through congress is being done in a bipartisan way, with a real clear alignment between where congress, the department, and the president wants to take the department of veteran affairs. So we have had for the first time a new bill with authorities for accountability, we have seen an expansion of the g. I. Bill, called the forever g. I. Bill. We have seen two bills not only expanding options for care in the community but also investments in the va with 28 new leases, and we have seen appeals modernization, which a has not happened since then 1930s. So a lot of activity. Were also seeing progress on the five priorities i have stated are most important to me as secretary. Giving veterans more choice about how and where they get their care and benefits and that creates a system that really allows us to be more responsive and accountable to veterans as customer. We have seen progress in the timeliness of services, in our wait times, that now are publicly posted for everybody to see how long it takes to get appointments. We still are the only Health System in the country that publicly posts its weight times. And its wait times and we though the va does better than the private sector wait times. Member thats why they dont post their wait times. Were improving performance in disable timeliness and will be making progress on the timeliness of appeals. Were modernizing the va. A new Electronic Medical record, the same one that they department of defense use and also announced well be disposing of 1100 vacant and underutilized facility us the fourth priority is to focus more on the thing that matter most to veterans, what can he call foundational services. Conditions that veterans are. Pacted on in their connection to service, like spinal cord injury, blind rehabilitation, prosthetics and orthotics, posttraumatic stress disorder, poly trauma, traumatic brain injury, thing that matter mores. Youll see the va investing more in those services and commodity in services that can be accessed easily any private sector. Last and the only clinical priority of the five isss prevention. 20 veterans a take taking their life unacceptable. That that is still happening and we are focusing our efforts, working in lots of ways that we havent focused on before to try to get that number down, and down significantly. So, those are the areas that were working on. Disclaimer and im going to start by saying that i am far from an expert in the issue of benefits. I consider myself a healthcare expert as a practicing physician. I know a lot about health care, not as much about benefits. Im trying to learn every day more and want to thank you for being patient with me and also teaching me. Ive learned a lot since i became secretary, and i just want to say that whenever i approach an issue that i dont really know a lot about, i have to go back and understand how we got to where we got. Im going to do is give you a lesson in history about benefits just because i had to do this for myself and this will lead towards understandin understande history my thoughts about where we go from here and put those future opportunities are. When i started learning about benefits for veterans i went back to the time of the romans. The first time i could find the American History on supporting veterans was in 1636. Thats when the pilgrims of Plymouth Colony passed a law and stated the disabled soldiers would be supported by the colony. Virginia was the first colony of followed the law 1644 and maryland fle followed virginia n 1661. Next, 1776 the Continental Congress provided pensions to disabled soldiers but at that time, paper money was worthless so they really went destitute and had worthless paper. In 1778 this time the officers were offered half of the pay for life during peacetime the treasury didnt have any money. In 1818 president james munro introduced the First Pension benefit it was 20 a month for enlisted soldiers. Congress calculated this must have been a cbo that the total cost of 500,000 expecting very few people would actually applied at the cost turned out to be much higher six times as many veterans applied for the benefit that they had expected so in 1820, two years Later Congress had to amend the law to include only those. In 1829, president jackson tried tto increased attention to the congress defeated and said they were not going to go along with it. But due to the previous tension and concern for the escalating cost in 1834, Congress Held a hearing before the committee. You can see we still hold to some of these traditions and found that there were 32,900 men who were still receiving pensions from the revolutionary war 50 years earlier. So they concluded it was filled with fraud and abuse in the system but that didnt stop congress. A few years later in 1836, the expanded attention this time for the widows of soldiers. The first home for veterans in the United States, so this is the first time the government went out and started building places where veterans could go. In 1834 it began to accept its first navy sailors and that building still stands today in philadelphia although a new naval building was built in gulfport mississippi. March 31865 president lincoln a month before the end of the civil war signed the law establishing a National Soldier and sailors asylum. The next day on the second inaugural address that is where lincoln committed the nation that we stole as the motto. That is something that today we still talk about. So you were offered 75 for a lost leg, 50 for a lost arm or if you decide not to take the payment if he would forgo it would be given an artificial limb from the government every three years they replace it for you for life. In 1866, this is the year the oe veteran Service Organizations were formed with the sole purpose may be like today to lobby the congress for more help for veterans and to build more homes. As the grand army of the republic and you still find those initials on a lot of the tombstones in National Cemeteries today. Now, right around 66 that is when morphine was developed, as was the hypodermic needles that you begin to see the rise for drug abuse among the veterans. They were not viewed as being related to conflict of the war that they were seen as criminals or week and they were completely shunned by society and often their families. In 1878, the treasury secretary estimated that the claims for veterans has reached 150 million president Rutherford Hayes at that time expanded benefits by signing the act which extended disability claims become five years. After the act by 1980. It is the single item in the budget as cleveland signed 1,453 o1,453at the shuttle veteran bi. So he was the most prolific in terms of expanding benefits. In 1887, so just two years later, cleveland actually be towed the bill to grant benefits to disabled veterans regardless of whether they were serviceconnected doorknob so he vetoed it and this was thought to be a major reason he was defeated for reelection next year. So even though he signed the 1400 bills, his unwillingness to support the one bill was thought to be the end of his political career. Congress passed that bill, the dependent pension act. In 1907 and 1912, congress graduated payment and continued to increase them. Congress established the new civility system with the implication rehabilitation for disabled veterans. It occurred in 1921 when the congress combined everything to create the Veterans Bureau. The budget of the bureau at the time was 477 million dot kernel was put in charge of the bureau in 1922, and he started to set out construction of the va hospitals across the country goes the world war i vets were coming back with tuberculosis and psychiatric issues are quite significant. I dont know how many of you know that Charles Forbes but things didnt end too well with him, he ended up arrested and going to jail for having stolen a lot of the money that was supposed to go to construct the va hospitals. The second time the veterans programs got consolidated was on july 211930, when president hoover elevated the Veterans Bureau to the veterans administration, what we call it today. In 1931, president hoover vetoed the compensation act which had borrowed up to 50 of their Life Insurance value and congress of course overrode president hoover and they took advantage of borrowing on the light incher ends. To demand the payment of a bonus that was promised on them and was never paid. They called themselves the Bonus Expeditionary force. And the marchers protested all through the white house and capitol and other federal buildings until president hoover to send the troops for the campsite the we were all living along the river. It included in the fin trade towel for me by a majo nature ge patton and army chief of staff Douglas Macarthur had the command. The bonus marchers and wives and children were driven out into the belongings were burned. Two veterans were shot and killed by police for resisting that type of eviction. The bonus army turned out to be a disaster and was one of the main reasons why they thought that he lost his 1932 election. We were in the great depression. Again, congress overturn the veto and above disabled veterans act of 1943 was passed for the veterans of the service can do disabilities and more than 68,000 veterans in world war ii benefited from that. The g. I. Bill was signed june 22, 1944 and represented a major advancement in the Veterans Benefits. They took advantage of the education benefits and a cost of 14. 5 billion. The Family Residences in the United States between 1944 and 1993. Part of the motivation of why he does g. I. Bill passed was still that fear of what happened with the bonus army after world war i. They didnt want to see that repeated in world war ii. The bill and the readjustment act of 1952 was put into place to help those that were newly discharged particularly coming home from the war. All of you have heard of general omar bradley, the secretary picture hangs in my office to this day. They brought him back in 19569 years after being the head of the va to chair the committee and the pensions. What he said at the time is the present structure of the veterans programs is not a system. It is an increase in the law based on precedents built up over 150 years of piecemeal development. So the commission he chaired a sad the practice of assisting the veteran and the i