the v.a. clinic instead of seeing caucasian men with meal chairs and oxygen who were in their eighty's. the entire composition of the waiting room changed was full of young women and men of all ethnicities and they're all in their twenty's back from their first year long deployment in iraq. the typical service member came in with an inability to complete a two mile run within regulation time. most of them had already had a traditional work up for pulmonary disease including x. rays c.t. scans primary function testing all of these studies returned normal or near normal in almost every case. it was subtle because these service members complained of shortness of breath with exertion but their x. rays and function tests indicated that they shouldn't have any disability at all that doctors were throwing up their hands and saying what would cause a twenty seven year old man to have a long. long journeys or a respiratory condition eighty five year old man and they started pointing to their exposure to these

when he ends up working at a v.a. clinic in los angeles, harvey relapses into his oldest habit -- autographng. >> he worked in the westwood area, and he would see stars when he was going to lunch, getting coffee. >> teresa priem is herself an autograph hound who worked the circuit with harvey. she tells me sometimes harvey spends all night outside a restaurant trying to spot an elusive star. other times he's crashing up to five hollywood functions in the same night. >> if it was a good event, harvey would probably get 30, 40, 50 autographs in one night. >> there he is with robert duvall... goldie hawn... charlton heston... and so many more. ♪ in the late 1970s, harvey begins dragging his 9-year-old son, david, along on autograph hunts. >> the star will always go to the child before he'll sign for other people. >> did you love it or hate it? >> i loved autograph collecting when i was a child. by the time maybe i became a teenager, though, it's not what i really wanted to be doing. i think i retired at the age of 13. >> but harvey's not ready to hang up his sharpie. over the next two decades,

importantly, this bill authorizes new community-based outpatient clinics and improves the v.a.'s ability to hire quality candidates. we are getting candidates of the highest quality into the system now. so that our veterans have more choices and more access to the absolute best possible care. i want to thank congressman phil roe and senator johnny isaacson, two people working so hard. senator dean heller for their dedicated efforts to get this through congress. it was very, very tough. for reasons i guess i understand, but it was not easy. and i will tell you that phil and johnny and dean worked very, very hard to get it through. and by the way, i can also say others, and even some democrats. you want to say their names? go ahead. say their names. >> senator koester and representative walls were key in helping to get this done, mr. president. pres. trump: see, i can do it. but people fought, and they really fought us hard, and now the administration is fighting for you. we are working night and day to ensure our brave veterans are provided with world-class treatment, which is wh

and i live about 10 miles from the clinic and i would rather use the v.a. health care. they do better jobs. delphine metcalf-foster: i appreciate that. paul: cheryl from alabama, press claim of your town please? caller: i just wanted to ask the --y when the v.a. started with post-traumatic stress syndrome, if she served in actual battle? thank you. paul: any response there? delphine metcalf-foster: i could barely hear her, could you repeat what she said? paul: it was a little bit tricky to hear you. unfortunately, she is gone. sorry about that. let's move on to jean from marietta, kansas. can hear her better. she is on the republican line. caller: hi there. what i am wondering is i hear these people saying what a good job the v.a. is doing and things. i worked at the v.a. myself for 17 years. in the hospital that i worked at , it had six operating rooms and they are only using two. and it is because of the lack of doctors. our emergency room was completely shut down due to the lack of doctors. -- i worked on the medical floor. there were two wards. both wa

v.a. providers at 67 of our hospitals or clinics across the country. that is beginning to roll out nationally. one more thing. we are going to be announcing a new technology called the veterans appointment request. it is allowing the veteran on their smartphone to schedule their appointments directly with v.a. providers, or to change their appointments or cancel appointments. today, this is available on all 18 of our regions across the country. we have already booked more than 4000 appointments from veterans directly from their smartphones so that they can schedule their own appointments. now, we are announcing the national rollout. if veterans want to see and get the veterans appointment request, you can see on our website, the v.a. app store has this available for download. what we are really doing is we are removing regulations that have prevented us from doing this. we are removing geography as a barrier so that we can speed up access to veterans and really honor our commitment to them. let me show you how this works, mr. president. if we come over

as some of you may or may not know who are more involved on clinical side, veterans tend to come to a v.a. either drive their car or come to the v.a. and actually suicide on our property. for a number of reasons not all of which i completely understand but one of them being they don't want their families to have to discover them. they know if they're discovered a the a v.a. that we will handle it in a proarpght proarpght appropriate way and take care of them but every day i'm notified of more and more of these that happen, and so -- question just have to do more. we have to do better. we have with to innovate. i know several of the innovators in the audience today are working on that area. but the whole point of why i'm describing 13 areas of risk our strategy of being transparent about our problems so we can find solutions and these five priority areas hoping that you can remember are five like yotd greater choice, modernizing our system improving timeliness, investing in foundational services, focusing on them and veteran suicide, is because this is really where we need you to innovate

v.a. providers at 67 hospitals or clinics across the country. that's beginning to roll out nationally.ore thing, mr. president. we are going to be announcing a new technology called the veterans appointment request. what that is is allowing the veteran on their smartphone to be able to schedule their appointments directly with v.a. providers or change their appointments or cancel their appointments with v.a. providers. today, this is available in all 18 regions across the country. we have already booked more than 4,000 appointments from veterans directly from their smartphones so they can schedule their own appointments. now, we are announcing the national rollout of this. if veterans want to see, get the veterans appointment request, you can see on our website mobile.va.gov, this is available for download. what we are doing is removing regulations that prevented us from doing this. we are removing geography as a barrier so we can speed up access to veterans and really honor our commitment to them. now, let me show you how this works, mr. president. if we come over here -- we use techn

very importantly this bill also authorizes new community-based outpatient clinics and improves v.a.'s ability to hire quality job candidates. we're getting candidates that are of the highest quality into the v.a. system now so that our veterans have more choices and more access to the absolute best possible care. i want to thank congressman phil row, senator johnny isaacson, two people have been working so hard, senator dean heller, for their dedicated efforts to get this bill through congress was very, very tough for reasons that, i guess i understand, but it was not easy. and i will tell you that phil and johnny and dean worked very, very hard to get it through. and by the way, i can also say others and even some democrats. do you want to say their names? >> sure. >> go ahead, say their names. >> senator tester and representative walls were key in helping us get this done, mr. president. >> good. see. i can do it. but people fought, and they really fought us hard, and now the administration is fighting for you. we're working night and day to ensure our brave veterans are provided w

v.a. payroll but not as the head of a clinic.ed to say you are fired and we're going to go through the new process? >> well, we're going to take a look at all the evidence that we had before when we did make the decision to fire him. and since then, even more evidence has come out, the inspector general has released its report on his leadership and found additional concerns. so when we look at all of that, using our new authorities, whatever decision that comes -- that we come up with i think will stick this time. pete: mr. secretary you talked about the healthcare system. you understand it you know there are great hospitals and doctors in it that goes unsaid. however it is shocking to at love vets that the d.c. clinic, the one closest to washington inside the swamp, closest to the federal government where, you know, we are told they can run healthcare is one that has had so many problems. why is it that this v.a. facility has had those problems? >> well, as you said, we have a very, very large system, the largest in the country.

the chief occupational health clinic of the washington v.a. medical center. we are joined by melissa emery hess -- is that correct? with a name like boast, i want to make sure we get it right. who's director of the research income of the gao. zachary hern, the deputy director for claims for veterans affairs and rehabilitation division of the american legoin. and michael fig leo yee. and finally anthony hearty, the national board chair and director for common sense. i want to remind the witnesses your complete written statement will be entered into the hearing record. with that mr. flora you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you, chairman boast. thank you for the opportunity to discuss how v.a. processes gulf war veteran's compensation claims for undiagnosed illnesses or multichronic illnesses. for purposes of my illness ill refer to these as gulf war illness. i will provide an overview of the v.a.'s processes and training and quality assurance efforts. it may be awarded when veteran has service in the southwest asia theatre operations after august 2, 1

v.a. provide proactive support for veterans who are at higher risk for suicide. we all watching an initiative getting to zero. this is our top clinical priority. to keep moving forward, we need your help. thousandfied a facilities that are vacant or underutilized and we are looking to move forward with 132 of those facilities and with your help, we can do more of the same. when he congress to fund our legacy systems to keep them from failing. datawill put all patient in one shared system, enabling seamless care between the v.a. and dod without manual and electronic exchange of data between separate systems. we need congress to authorize an overhaul of our broken claims appeals process. we work closely with other stakeholders to trap a proposal to modernize the system and we are pleased to see the house your kind the bill last month. now we need the senate to act. we need congress to ensure the continued success of choice for veterans. veterans are responding to our modernization efforts by choosing the eight more than before. choices,p with those we need to fully fund choice and modernize the care program. it will cordon it will cour

v.a. to provide proactive support for veterans who are at higher risk for suicide. we're launching a new initiative this summer, getting to zero, to help us and veteran suicide. this is my top clinicalriority. to keep moving forward, we will lead your help. we have identified over 1000 facilities that are vacant and we are working to move forward with 142 of those facilities and with your help, we could do more of the same. we need congress to fund our i.t. modernization to keep our legacy systems from family and to replace vista with a system already used by the department of defense. this will ultimately put all patient data in one shared system enabling seamless care between the v.a. and d.o.d. we also need congress to authorize an overhaul. andork closely with vso's other stakeholders to draft a proposal to modernize the system and we were pleased to see the house unite behind that bill nex last month. most of all, we need congress to ensure the continued success of choice for veterans. veterans are responding to our modernization efforts by choosing v.a. to keep up with those choices we need to fully fund choice and help us modernize and consolidate the community care through t