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We have a vote on the floor which should be over in the next ten minutes. I will talk a little bit and tell you what i want you to know. I will start with testimony from sloan gibson. Make the note that his staff said that was okay. I want to take extra time because this is an important hearing. Last year culminating with the passage of the veterans choice bill problems in raleigh, denver come orlando and answers that were in completed for understandable reasons. Just left about a year early. Gone as well. There was a transition. There is no excuse for the plethora of problems, and the transit...

In income. So instead of standing in the corner and figuring out how to bring a trade bill to the floor they ought to be fixing equal pay for equal work, they ought to be fixing Student Loans for our students, they ought to be passing a highway bill, they ought to be increasing the minimum wage, and they ought to deal with currency fairness because our trading partners, they play with their currency in order to push forward their products. But oh, no. That is not on the agenda. We could have an agenda for a vibrant middle class but instead of that, we are moving toward a trade bill. Now, i kno...

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 communicat...

Message where it needs to be delivered, that the time is critical and i look forward to being part of the solution. Thank you very much, mike, for your comments and your contributions. Ill take it a little bit out of order now and take my law partner and former member of congress, state of georgia, congressman Jack Kingston to give his perspective on some of the things theyre doing down in georgia, particularly in the port project area and hes now with us, with these projects probably had something to do with them back when you were in congress yourself. Jack, why dont you go ahead and tell us...

Captioning performed by vitac forward to hearing first from sloan gibson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman isakson Ranking Member blumenthal and the committee, were committed to making the Choice Program work and to providing veterans timely and geographically accessible care, using care in the community whenever necessary. Ill talk shortly about what were doing and the help that we need from congress to make all of that happen. First, i want to talk very briefly about access to care. Most mornings at 9 00 a. M. , for the last year, Senior Leaders from across the department gathered to focus ...