Discipline v. A. Employee. Is that one of the inherent problems at the Veterans Administration . Rep. Roe when we met with dr. Scholz after he was sworn in, and by the way elected 1000. I had breakfast with him and accountability was the first thing that came out of his a mouth his mouth. We looked at and accountability bill to allow the v. A. To more quickly determine it for performing for performing employees. Many of them in my hometown, we have a major the a medical center. They are Close Friends of mine. They are dedicated veterans. A poor performing employee hurts them. We want to give the secretary the tools and we passed and accountability bill out of the house already, which shortens the length of time it takes to discipline a poor performing employee while still allowing them their due process rights. It might slow down but its still about two months. It is not like where you may be terminated today. It is still a couple months process, even this expedited process we are looking at. Senator rubio is going to be carrying a companion bill. Steve how do you strike a balance between the employees rights in going after somebody who is not meeting standards . Roe i think this does. If you take too much, that is adequate time to be able to add your due process process. After that you can still appeal to a court. The merit protection board is still going to be able to look at it. It is a fair process. Weve had employees who have been involved in Bank Robberies that have taken as much as a year to fire. So i think this is fair, a treat everyone fairly and its certainly it will the secretary needs. Steve let me turn to conor obrien at politico. Connor thank you, mr. Chairman. The accountability bill that was one of the first bills that was passed out of your committee, it is similar to legislation the house passed a couple of times under your predecessor. It has been trouble getting through the senate because of the requirement to get democrats on poor to get the 60 votes. Im wondering what do you think , is different this year about that legislation . Do you think is a better chance . What makes the difference question mark difference . Rep. Roe there was an issue that came up in houston, texas just recently, where a provider there, a psychologist was apparently seeing a patient and viewing pornography at the same time. This person in the private world have a working in our practice when it fired right there on the spot. This person is making over 200,000 a year and is at least 30 days before anything can be done. Again, you want to protect peoples due process rights. This bill does that. Expedite the secretarys ability to hire people. We still have 16 v. A. Medical centers around the country that dont have a ceo or a permanent ceo. It does other things. I believe we have a great chance of passing this bill in a bipartisan way out of the senate and giving the secretary the tools he wants. Steve to follow up on that last , but mcdonald may said i cant go into a room and start firing people. I cant fire my way to success. Im wondering what more do you think needs to be done on the opposite side of that . On the hiring side . They had Something Like 30,000 openings. Some have been excerpted from president trumps hiring freeze. What more do you think you guys need to do on the hill to be able to do that . Rep. Roe i think funding quality people. The v. A. Has over 150 Major Medical centers. They are providing care for our veterans. These are highly sophisticated medical centers. , a couple thousand or more employees. Just this coming week tomorrow on monday i will be in los angeles. And then in phoenix to go to the v. A. Medical centers and be preached out there. Center for thel she started three years ago has had seven directors and three years. Im those qualified people that i think dr. Shogun is to go for this incredibly long process and say here is a good person, they are qualified. Lets hire them. I think that expedited process needs to be done and quickly. This bill gives them the ability to do that. Kellie from cq roll call . Kellie i would like to talk to you about the v. A. Choice program, the 2014 law put in place to pair down wait times at v. A. Facilities for veterans waiting too long at a facility. A flawed program that both republicans, democrats and the secretary agree is not working as desired. But just passed out of the house president , for the elimination of the sunset of the program. You said on the floor he gives you time to work on a larger overhaul bill the hope to get to the president by the end of the year. What will that overhaul look like and how will it be paid for . Rep. Roe for our viewers out there, this is a very bipartisan committee. It is a Fun Committee to work on. I am a veteran. I served in the second United StatesInfantry Division in korea from 1973 to 1974 a few miles south of the dmz. I did some training in the va hospital during my medical training. Ive seen both veterans and both activeduty military. I understand what it takes to see patients and take care of them for over 30 years. What we want, what i want as a chairman, as a veteran, and as a doctor and as a citizen is the absolute best care for our veterans, wherever they get it. That does not mean privatizing the v. A. It means providing quality care for veterans forever they may be. That may be a challenge in rural areas and urban areas less so. Medical centers tend to be in more urban areas. What i want the choice to be is lets forget the 30 to 40 miles in 30 days. Certainly for our Service Connected people, 11 to provide to go to a primary care provider of their choosing. But the veteran in charge of their health care decisions, not somebody at the v. A. , rule out of the a the choice of the program, it is bumpy. It was the way it was unlimited. Not the concept with the implement patient. But the limitation. What we want is a Provider Network outside of the v. A. , privatizations that cover a whole. Neurosurgery, those are very hard specialties to find. But the private sector can provide that care in the v. A. Or outside the v. A. , thats what we want. We are going to massage this carefully. Those sick upset occurred not going to be in this bill. Kellie to drill down on the finances behind the Choice Program, this was a 10 billion emergency program. Most of which was deficit spending. If you want to eliminate the 30 mile 40 mile, 30 day requirement related to the asgram, the cbo says as low 200 million. You said with estimates as high as 1. 2 billion left in the fund by the time the date would have hit. Can you assure veterans will see that is they will be money for the Choice Program while youre working on a broad overhaul and how we you pay for more after the money runs out . Rep. Roe thanks for asking a really easy question. Havehoice program will 800 million to 1 billion on the seventh of august. Lets say you are a pregnant woman a veteran who needs care. ,but you do date is after the seventh of august. They cannot and will you and the Choice Program. If you had cancer and were getting chemotherapy or treatments that may last test august 7, you couldnt be enrolled. That was stopping patients were now from getting the care they need it. We had to get that sunset date removed. And then give us the time to work through what we wanted to look like. To pay for it, we think the v. A. Can do a much better job collecting. I have a perfectly good health a Reasonable Health Insurance plan. You can build that plan. The v. A. Does that. If i had private insurance, which i have, they can tell my private insurance. Know if they will go anywhere are not but the president has said very clearly that he wanted to increase spending for the department of defense and for veterans, he made a promise on the campaign trail. I can tell you i think he intends to keep that promise. Connor mr. Chairman, as a doctor you have placed a high emphasis and have touched on it so far reforming of the v. A. Does health care. Im curious. Over the last couple of weeks the house was not able to do the repeal and replace of the Affordable Care act, which is kind of a rallying cry for republicans. Im wondering if the house was not able to do Something Like aca which proved to be a flashpoint for a lot of republicans. How do you think you will have to approach fundamental reform of the v. A. Health care and can you do it . Rep. Roe i have been involved in those from the getgo. It is one that we have made a commitment to our veterans since the civil war to take care of those who have borne the battle. It is such a privilege for me that i have never dreamed i was in private practice in johnson city, tennessee. That i would have the opportunity to help veterans. I grew up in fort campbell, kentucky. My friends death resurgence in the army. I thought the sergeants ran everything. And when i got to the army as a captain i found out they did run everything. I am a vietnam era veteran and many of our vietnam era veterans do not get treated very well. I had a family. I had to finish my medical training. Basically it i was pretty focused on what i was going to do. A lot of people i knew, guys i went to high school with, im glad to see the country step up. I tell you what makes me proud. I can remember getting on an airplane back in the 1970s and they told us not to wear uniforms when we traveled. Can you imagine that today . I sit at an airport, and i and that a lot of them. I hear the first thing if you are a soldier or military person you can board the plane first. That makes me proud to sit there as an old veteran and see how our country is changing its attitude. I think its now my opportunity. Right butt everything i can assure you our committees focused on doing the right thing for veterans. Steve let me pick up on connors question. You indicated a twoweek riod. Ict work pe speaker ryan says he wants to get health care done this year. You told local reporters in tennessee a third of your counties cannot even get insurance on the exchange. What any reform change that . Rep. Roe the answer is yes it would. Senator alexander brought forth a piece of legislation the if you are an account elect knox county, tennessee, the thirdlargest in our state, there are no options on the exchange. If you have a subsidy on the exchange, lets let that person buy a nonaca compliant plan. If they can. If they can find one. And you can, they are available in the state. And then not penalize them. We have people in my state paying penalties and then going and buying nonaca compliant plans because they can afford it. The problem with health care today is not just accessibility. Access. An get if the affordability of it. Call kelli from cq roll . Kellie i wanted to drill down on the trump request. A 6 increase for the v. A. On the discretionary side. We are waiting for more information on the larger budget rollout. You have previously said you dont know if it is necessarily a need for more funds given the years of increases. It may be a matter of how the money is spent. And my for those comments, can you talk about the proposed increase to the v. A. . Rep. Roe i can and obviously resources are needed. Its how you use the resources. Here that long. I have been here since 2009, so eight years. The v. A. Was spending on Health Care Benefits and cemeteries about 97 billion. That is a lot of money. They had around 260,000 employees, and enormous organization. Eight years later the taxpayers out of their have increased that spending. They have provided the resources to almost 180 billion when you include the Choice Program. Increased toa. Has almost 360,000 employees. When you ask yourself the question, is it that much better . The answer is no, if you talk to veterans. I think he understands that. He has run Large Organizations before. We have separate silos of things we do. We have the health care side. The other is the benefit side. A side i didnt realize we had control over, which i will visit in los angeles are cemeteries. We have cemeteries around the world that we care for in the v. A. I think the resources are there. I have seen it is incredibly frustrating for me. Dod and the v. A. Got together several years ago to try to make the to Health Records interactive. They spent 1 billion, that is 1000 million dollars. Trying to make that happen and they failed. We just wasted 1 billion that could of been spent on health care or benefits or Survivor Benefits or education benefits. The v. A. Hospital out in denver , colorado is over one billion dollars over budget. We cant continue to waste taxpayer money. As you pointed out, the Choice Program was deficit spending. We certainly have an obligation to take care of our veterans. I want to look inside the v. A. System its a hack or a better spend this precious resources to provide the benefits for veterans . Not make the bureaucracy bigger, butthe a jobs program, provide health care and benefits for veterans. And a final resting place. Connor is it the right amount the president is proposing . Is it too much for the v. A. And Defense Department for the expense of domestic spending . Rep. Roe thats a great question. If we do the Choice Program we dont have a score yet. I was told we are going to get it this past weekend we did not. As soon as we get a score will will know better about how to choice 2. 0. View of we will not know until you get a score from them. Kellie to follow more on resources, the Inspector General has told appropriators that they lack the resources to properly investigate whistleblower complaints. There is this appeal this claimant disability continues to be of problem. How do you reallocate resources or is there a need for resources in those specific programs . Have ae i think we will bill out of the house soon and i think it will be easily passed in the senate to help streamline the appeals process. What we will say to a veteran is you can take a fast track if you want to. That means that during that he want to get a valuation quickly. When i say quickly to meet about 120 or 125 days. But during that time if you choose that route, you cant begin to add more and more information. What throws the claims off as it will get downstream a little bit in a veteran will add another piece of information. It backs up and starts over. But this also goes into the antiquated i. T. System. They dont have a way to go from the claims and look back at the Health Record of the veteran electronically. We have to do that. That was choice 2. 0 and i. T. Reform. We have to do it. I think dr. Sheldon wants to do that. I think he wants to do that so you can do scheduling, contracting, claims and health care in a i. T. Platform that is interactive, not layered. The initial health care record, electronic Health Record was really the leader in the house. It was the stateoftheart when it started. But they tried to layer many processes and functions onto it that it was never designed to do. I think we will talk to the secretary about how we can do that. We spent 4. 5 billion and 90 thats a lot of money. 86 of it went to simply maintaining the platform they had, not adding new functions. Steve Connor Obrien a politico . Connor i would like to ask about your relationship as chairman with the Senate Veterans affairs committee. In the past there have been some differences over the size and scope of legislation that the two committees have produced. Withenate has kind of gone your, more costly legislation where the house side has tried to take smaller bites of the apple. I am wondering how you see the relationship playing out in terms of you and chairman Johnny Isakson over in the senate cooperating on legislation. Do you think you are on the same page . In terms of the process . Rep. Roe . I do. One of the first invented as chairman was making a point with as many senators as would see me. I talked to them on the phone or in person. Senator tester, senator sanders, senator murray, senator mccain, on and on, rubio. I talked to all of them personally. I wanted to have a relationship so they would know me and what i was doing and if i was doing and excited them what my vision for the a was. For the v. A. Was. I spent a great deal of time building those relationships. I think they are important to be on the same page. Thats what i have done to start with. Kellie you have been complimentary of the new the administrator, david chilton. Over ca health administrator. The previous secretary bob mcdonald sometimes classed with the health committee. I want to know with you as the new chairman and the new administrator, how do you hope this relationship works when it comes to tackling these large legislative overhauls . I think secretary mcdonald is a highly qualified person. I want to say that from the very beginning. I think dr. Socgen is also. Its important to sit down on a oneonone basis and say what is your view question what is your . That eight years to formulate that. One of the things i think its been a problem with the v. A. , and this is a huge agency. The secondlargest discretionary part of the budget and the entire government. It is a big organization. For us to have the same philosophical views, does that line of what the administration wants. We have a great working relationship with the political side of the Trump Administration. I know them personally. I have gotten to know them and say here is my vision. A vision the president can support and the answer was yes. What do we need to do to get there . Secretarys gathering tools and we are trying to get him the tools to do what he wants to do. We will not be completely successful in what we are going it is so big. Fixing i. T. Will be an eight or tenure process. I wish we had secretaries like in the fbi. They have an eight year appointment so you know the secretary is going to be there. That is a big ask of someone. I think it will be good what because when you continually change coaches, team never rallies around. I wish we know he will be there at least for four years and hopefully eight. I think you can have the changes. Steve what have been th