mr. 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

mr. 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

mr. 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

mr. 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