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Having me, chris. i appreciate the opportunity to talk with you tonight. you make some great points, senator sanders makes some great points. i agree the quality of care we're seeing, especially locally in new york city, if veterans can access that care and if they are choosing to access that care, there is actually some excellent care to be had. the manhattan v.a. has one of the best prosthetic care programs in the country. and so, i hear a lot of veterans being happy with their care but again, access is the issue. so, america has around 21 million veterans but fewer than 6 million of those v...

Today, they posted, had a lot of interesting tidbits, a ground eye view of this. one thing they said, we need more people, period. people are quitting and retiring and we are not backfilling. i heard that in my own reporting, if you look at the budget target figure it's not necessarily that the money isn't there so much as there aren't enough people. >> well, that ties into money. look, at the end of the day, if we are serious about providing quality health care to our veterans, and by the way, in the midst of all of this when we have to say loudly and clearly and the veterans organizations sa...

They've had increased eligibility and also that's just the cohort of aging but keep in mind, as iraq and afghanistan veterans are home and they spend time sitting on issues that may come up later like with depleted uranium, burn pit inhalation -- >> a lot expanding down the road as well. >> as we age, i'm one of those veterans who has not -- selected not to seek health care through the vfrnl.a. system although i' enrolled. i suspect i will be seeking care later on if it's something that i can -- >> all the more reason things need to be fixed now. army veteran kristen rouse. thank you. >> thank...

Put it together and you're facing a situation where >> tom: whithere is not enough capacity to keep up with demand for care. all of the conditions predated eric shinseki who became va secretary in 2009. what he can fairly be criticized for is a crucial decision during his tenure. crucial decision was target for wait times the wait system cut from 30 days that directive would seem to be all well intentioned, but now appears to have pushed an already stressed system past the breaking point and put existing incentives to game the system. the problems were bigger than the man at the top and there ...

Was saddened. in my view, chris, eric shinseki is a true american hero and not just because of the purple hearts he received in vietnam but because of the courage that he showed as army chief of staff in telling the truth about what was going to happen in iraq, standing up to his boss at that time, donald rumsfeld. and also, as secretary of the va, this guy has done a lot of good things. when he came into office, chris, the claims process, if you can believe it in 2009, was done with paper. paper, for the veterans administration, a million claims a year, some of these claims having boxes and b...