amg urges bva to hire and provide more in-depth and relevant training for current employees. amg also urges bva management to conduct a study to determine how long each staff takes to complete wall working a claim. with the recent transfer, this study is more applicable and necessary than ever. once again i will like the commission for thanks to share our views. >> thank you mr. jenkins. mr. gibson, you are recognized for your testimony. >> thank you. i would like to thank the congressman for inviting me to speak today. in 2011 while training to deploy to afghanistan, i received a severe back injury. by the time it received at the site in fort worth, texas, i was confined to a wheelchair earning me the nickname the wheelchair soldier. days later, i was prescribed a cocktail of drugs to allow me to walk but without excruciating pain. plus and the warrior transition program, it required surgical intervention. before my back surgery could be performed, i required a procedure to treat uterine fibers. i did not receive a follow-up gynecological appointment. i was determined to be

the blind veterans association is here to express our views and concerns regarding specific bva issues. the issue i'm going to discuss is h.r. 1284, the beneficiary travel. as the director of the government relations for bva, i've already spent many hours and days with members of the house committee on veterans affairs regarding this bill. for veterans who are currently ineligible which are non-service-connected veterans, section 111 does not cover the cost of travel for those nonservice-connected veterans to one of the 13 blind rehab centers. or to any of the 28 spinal cord injury locations. if the law continues to stay as written, the nonservice-connected veteran hues bear the financial hardship of purchasing their own mode of travel to one of these rehab centers. the cost will certainly continue to discourage the nonservice-connected veteran from traveling to a blind rehab center or spinal cord injury center. at this time most of the nonservice-connected veterans are of the age of 67 years old, and their blindness or vision impairment is due to age-related conditions. they have to l

i've been deeply involved in my education, but yearly i catch up with my blind veteran friends at the bva and it's -- every year it gets more discouraging. so for the last year or so, i stopped asking about it. because it just brought -- it was just depressing to me. and this year when i got with them they told me that for the past years the staffing was inadequate and the -- there were no -- the records weren't being fit into the registry, the collaboration wasn't taking place as it was supposed to. i never -- never got any positive information about the progress of the bce. >> if there were one thing that our committee could do to make a difference in that area, what would that be in your estimation? >> to ask to see what -- to ask the people responsible what -- what they were asked to do. and which of those tasks they've completed. and how lock it took them to complete that task to just hold the people responsible for creating this wonderful tool for us. >> mr. chairman, i think that's what our committee should do. mr. fugate, i understand that you're friends with our colleague, tim la

i thought it was bva battle damage assessment. i could go on and on and on. and if i was a person being discharged, you know, i think i know more about klingon and that vocabulary than these acronyms which just keep multiplying over and over. you use them all the time. the average person, i think i know most of it. i try to forget most of them, you know, after 20 sixers in the marine corps and then i got into education and to learn all kinds of things. the point i'm making is that trying to communicate with the people that you serve by using this foreign language, at least from my perspective, is very difficult. a lot of people don't get it, particularly the seniors. they have a series of problems. this type is talked about that 95%. when i see 95%, ma i think that's something that we can make it to streamline the process. we can do that. airlines notify people when the plane is going to be late or what have you. the technology now. i'm probabl progress want to tat technology because i'm horrible at it. thank god i'm married, either wife who is very bright, a

he campaigned on fixing bva. he has worked really hard on immigration, which is illegal.k aamerican people to protect the citizens. we have 11 million people out of work in the united states of america. tariffs andaise buildings here in the united states by american citizens. remark, i think every caller was unanimous in being against this uniform immigration proposal. hopefully, washington is listening. point about terrorists, i would take a slight issue. theink free trade helps united states and foreign nations. it is a free flow of goods. will sayarian friends why not the free flow of labor. labor involvest people. we cannot just have open borders. milton friedman acknowledged that. you cannot have open borders in a welfare state. we cannot allow everyone in the world who would want to come to united states to come to the united states. it needs to be fair to everybody. you for your time. coming up next, we will be taking a look at the nearly $2 billion job force program. joining us is david fahrenthold . we will be right back. ♪ >> from a policy perspective, the way t

still be thel dinosaur utilizing bva's services, but they expanded if they cannot get those services with the the v.a. system, that they can go beyond that. i want us to open that up. i want to see my veterans, make sure they're getting be preventative care and access to care, and then we can see how everything shapes up, making sure that we have a contract opened up so we have as many providers as we can to serve. the bottleneck occurs when we have limitations on the providers, we want to open that up. sanders,nie independent of vermont, chairman of the senate veterans affairs committee with our guest here on the "washington journal." he brokered the senate legislation with your arizona colleague, senator john mccain, republican there. here is what he had to say to our reviewers yesterday about the differences between the two bills. [video clip] >> the house has focused primarily on management issues, and they had a bill, which was a pretty simple bill, that said the secretary has the power to fire. immediately. i objected to that because i think that you do not want to put the v.a.

it also -- but also, on top of don'tke bva scandal, i understand why anybody needs to wait 90 days to see a doctor. why can't we just see a regular doctor in the network? if i am sick and i want to see a doctor, i go out and i see a doctor. i don't understand why we need to waste tons of money for this when it is just common sense. if they can't get into a va hospital, send them to a regular hospital. don't make him wait 90 days, when it comes out to veterans affairs. when it comes to spending, i believe in cutting wasteful spending but i also believe in bringing in jobs like the keystone pipeline, boosting our economy, letting our country h -- guest: i agree with the caller a great deal. let's think outside the box, that's get our veterans help. theerms of jobs growth, house has passed keystone, we work on energy policy, reforming our job training structure program. these are the kinds of things that where we pass jobs -- government needs to promote and have the access that allows the market and the jobs to be created. when government interferes with that, we have problems. the other