michaud. >> thank you very much, madam chair. i just want to follow up, mr. doyle, on your comment that you made where you mentioned that contracting officers do not change what the clinician prescribed but actually, in testimony we heard earlier from pva, that is not the case, that their testimony states that contract officers when they do receive the orders, the request for the devices is modified and even denied in cases because of the cost. so that is a huge concern. there seem to be a disconnect from what you're hearing versus what the vsos are hearing because that is not the case. the cost is a factor. it's not the veterans' health care. so do you want to comment on that? >> yes, sir. thank you. first of all, contracting officers, all contracting officers do have a mandate under federal acquisition regulations to ensure that there's a price reasonableness aspect to the cost we are providing. i don't know if that is a concern or not. can't really speak to what may have happened before but i have put out to the contracting community that under 8123, if a

michaud. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. my question is, one of your recommendations, i'll quote, consider veterans' concerns with the approval process of va contract care for prosthetic service to meet the needs of veterans with amputations, end of quote. would you expound a little bit more on that recommendation in details? is the reason why you came up with that because you were finding that veterans are being denied care or unduly delayed in receiving care? >> what we found in interviews with veterans were complaints similar to what the first panel expressed, and that was these men and women are active. they're going to school, they have families, they have lives. if their prosthetic breaks, they want it fixed immediately. they don't want to have to get in the car and drive some place to have an examination done or to get the paperwork, you know, accomplished appropriately. we in our work did not analyze the business practices of making that happen, so i didn't feel i was in a position to offer advice as to how to fix th

in the united states we're also seeing a basically flat to negative picture with the michaud rally facebook is up around one percent on the nasdaq and that's very good news for the company which has seen three consecutive weeks of losses. over on the commodities market also worries persist about the state of global demand given that you know there's no solution to the european crisis on the horizon at least in light sweet and brant of the climbing around half a dollar per barrel over here in russia as bill you mentioned the russian markets are closed on monday and on tuesday they were open on a saturday with the working saturdays of people could have three days off in a row and the r.t.s. gained more than one percent of making one of the biggest weekly gains since february in russia we will see more trade of course on a wednesday same applies to the russian ruble which lost a lot of value on saturday to the euro but again just a knowledge versus the dollar whereas the euro right now on these worries about spanish bonds is going down in value. also an anonymous bidder is paying a record thre

good morning, chairman buerkle, ranking member michaud, and members of the subcommittee. thank you for the opportunity to speak about the department of veterans affairs' ability to deliver state of the art care to veterans with amputations. i'm accompanied today by dr. webster, our director of the amputation system of care, dr. miller, our national program director for orthotic and prosthetic services, and mr. norbert doyle, who is vha's chief procurement logistics officer. va's prosthetics and sensory aid service is the largest and most comprehensive provider of prosthetic devices and sensory aids in the world, offering a full range of equipment and services. all enrolled veterans may receive any prosthetic item prescribed by a va clinician without regard to service connection when it is determined to promote, preserve, or restore the health of the individual and is in accord with generally accepted standards of medical practice. i will briefly summarize the major initiatives under way to improve the quality and availability of amputation care. these fall under five gene

michaud. >> thank you very much, madam chair. i'll start with mr. oros. mr. mayor from the first panel actually recommended the committee ask the va to freeze the pending reorganization until a full scale program to evaluate a new strategic plan can be achieved, and i know sounds like the wounded warrior project agrees with that assessment. do you agree with that as well, and we'll start each of the panelists can answer that question. and why. >> i guess i'm not entirely familiar with the differentiation between what mr. mayer is asking to be done and the current system. >> do you think we should ask the va to freeze the organization, to bring everything in-house? >> absolutely, absolutely. >> i'm happy to provide a comment on that. with regard to the reorganization, all of our concerns are provided in our written statement, but until i think that we can answer that, it would be great to be able to know the results and how things worked in the pilots that were implemented in january. it is my understanding that within those pilots different, the re-org was im

hardball" in 1997 and in 2002, he started the syndicated weekly political talk show, "the chris matthews michaud." he is the author of six books. ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming chris matthews to the national press club. [applause] >> thank you. it is great to be here for gerry abd tip and their friendship. by the way, congratulations, corinne. i couldn't believe your nervous here but i am never nervous you're going to have a dentist and get to me and scot you are great prepa. every time i cover campaigns and that was the people at the quality newspapers i watch them file things and check things, i pick up the paper and a beautifully turned out facto peace, i was blown away by this trade reporters. commentary is easy. but reporting is work. you guys are good. i want to talk about what is going on today and the way it used to be. i always tell kids after i write a book -- on father's day, they sell 1/5 as many books as christmas. i always tell young people that it is all true. times have changed and you have to tell them about the past and i waited your parents and as a new gran

michaud asked that i sent a letter to dr. cable agreed that was never done, never raised with me. if you look at the general tone of the text exchanges, they tend to be, i will bring that up, or sorry, i am on paternity leave, or whatever. there is nowhere that he says big idea, i will action that point. mr. harrison, i think, was doing his job of meeting people and representing important businesses but he was very careful not to promise things that we would not have wanted to deliver. >> there is reference to ongoing dialogue in weeks to come. is that something that did not occur? >> we have done a search of the e-mail system and of correspondence with the treasury and there is no evidence of such an ongoing dialogue. i have been told that no such ongoing dialogue happened. >> reference to the commitment of news corp. to scotland. >> i cannot, i am afraid. >> could mr. harrison? >> mr. harrison, when he looked at this e-mail, he said when the bid came up, mr. harrison made clear that it was subject to the quasi-judicial process that we were not involved. i think in the evidence t