good morning everyone i'd like to welcome everyone to this hearing the purpose of which is to review the administration's budget request for the v a budget for fiscal years two thousand and eleven and two thousand wel you're here because we're all grateful for your distinguished public service to our nation as an army soldiers chief of staff the army and now as secretary of the department of veterans affairs members i am going to forego any lengthy opening statement but i do want to make one or two points first mr secretary i salute the administration's budget requests last year didn't get a lot of attention in the press but my understanding is that the president's budget request for the v a was the largest single budget request by any president over the last three decades and that money obviously is needed and deserved veterans and  president for making that request i know you're a major part of putting that budget request together nicely for that i also want to thank you and the administration for your leadership on the advance funding for appropriations something that was a singularly top priority for virtually all of our major veteran service organizations that's now the law of the land and it would have happened without the administration without chairman o b who played a key role in that without our ranking member mr watt and a bipartisan support we had for for that that effort i think that's a great step forward in lyonesse to spend taxpayers dollars more efficiently and effectively for veterans my final point before recognizing mr juan for any comments he'd care to make is that as we look year's budget i think it's important to look at it in the context of what we have done over the past three years for veterans the increased in funding for medical care and benefits has been unprecedented to my knowledge and the history  a full bipartisan cooperative way we do the work of our nation especially the important responsibilities that we carry out to our nation's veterans and investing in our military construction needs around the world i want to thank the secretary i think  great judgment and asking you to serve and you showed once again your great dedication to our country by agreeing to serve at this critical time and i think you bring a unique unique set of experiences life experience and  patriotism at the highest level to come and do this and i'm just grateful for your service i also want to say thanks to undersecretary morrow for the work that he's doing and the responsiveness that he has demonstrated already  and my office on important cemetery across the country and just to say that represents you very well in terms of the interface with our offices i want to thank you for the time that you give the chairman and i individually so that we can address the needs outside of the hearing context so we can kind of dig a little deeper and talk about the challenges that you face because we all have that the public view and then we have some questions that may dig a little deeper that we need to ask  thank you for your courtesy and for secretary graham's as well i want to thank the chairman mr robey for pushing so hard here on our committee to to make sure we have the resources that we need to meet these responsibilities i want to say that the ranking member mr lewis i think is expected to join us and of course bill young who's somewhat iconic here in the military and veterans arena will join us as well but there are many members that are at other hearings that they wanted to stop by to get on the record and then come here so i think we'll see everyone come and go but i just want to thank you and just say this in closing as a said to you as we stood at your desk a moment ago i was so reminded this year mr chairman of why it's important for this committee to exist separately from the defense appropriations committee because the military quality of life which is our piece on the milk  the health care specifically mental health is so intertwined that it's important that we maintain this specific subcommittees focus and keep these two pieces together whether it's p t s d the suicide rate the overall mental health of our troops and our veterans the interface is inseparable and it's so important i think you know this is my last year here for the committee to keep  together because it has to be a seamless cooperative effort going forward especially on this mental health piece because we're looking at the strain on the troops today with these ratios of deployments which my view are unsustainable and then we look at the veterans coming home and the challenges that they face and we have got to look at this that the military looks at the fight as one force we've got to look at these problems together as well not active versus veterans but all as one continuum of care i think it starts as soon as they serve and it doesn't end until they die that's your comments about the quality of life work of this committee so well taken i think it's one of the gratifying things about being on the subcommittee there not a lot of business lobbyists running around capitol hill fighting for the military construction side better day care centers for military troops whose loved ones are on the fourth tour of duty in iraq or afghanistan or their housing and you know a whole continuum of care from the time an active duty guard or reserves to the v a and support equality is the primary responsibility this committee and i thank you for your leadership and all the members for their work on that chairman dave obey doesn't need an introduction is the full chair of the committee that meets in this room but he deserves one and i just want to very briefly say that the unprecedented progress we've made in the last three years and supporting financially and with new programs health care and benefits and otherwise for our veterans know that progress would have occurred had it not been for the leadership of chairman in many ways top veterans leaders know what he has done in many ways easy unsung heroes of america's veterans for what he has done and i can tell you firsthand whether it was at the budget committee process or making meeting with speaker pelosi and following through on her commitment to make veterans a top priority or whether it was his singularly important leadership role in making allocations for this committee  district something happened to him and let me put it in context mr edwards has started to do that i think that i cannot think of a portion of the budget the budget since the beginning of the hundred tenth congress advance appropriations for three medical accounts to give the v a more funding assurance for prudent management a fifty five percent increase  to the veterans health administration my understanding is that that has resulted in an additional thirty three hundred eighty four doctors over fourteen thousand nine hundred forty five community based outpatient clinics and ninety two veterans an increase in the patient travel reimbursement to forty want to have cents per mile or reimbursement that had been frozen at eleven and nine hundred seventy nine eighty three hundred more disability claims processors resulting in a thirty one percent increase in claims processed from seven hundred seventy four thousand claims in two thousand and six to a thousand or two million fifteen thousand four hundred seventy five in two thousand and ten the real putting a priority eight disability enrollment for veterans with modest incomes the historic establishment of the new g i bill will provide again as i understand it three billion you don't get the benefit of those increases all of that can be pretty meaningless at the ground level i received a short time ago a letter from a woman in my district which she sent to the president of the united states last week involving her husband who died on september thirtieth two thousand secretary once again and it's good to have you back for our subcommittee and your testimony will be submitted for the record i'd like to recognize you now for any opening comments you care to make and then we will get into questions and answers report to you that we had a good start in two thousand and nine we have tremendous opportunity here in two thousand and ten with the budget largest and thirty years provided to us by president obama and then the president's continued strong support of veterans and veterans into two thousand and eleven and two thousand and twelve i appreciate the generosity of time shared with me by members of this committee prior to the r are acting undersecretary for memorial affairs and roger baker long ball hitting the secretary for information and technology and for those specific questions that need some detail with the chairman's permission i'd like to invite them to come up individually and then provide additional details that members of the committee may want chairman thanks for accepting my written testimony for the record and twelve for over a year now we have promoted a new strategic framework organized around three governing principles it's about transforming v a into being more people centric and you've heard me use these terms before people  results oriented a lot of promises are made we get graded on on the results and finally to be forward looking we know where we've come from we have an idea where we have to go strategic plan delivers on president obama's vision for and is in the final stages of review strategic goals will improve the quality and increase access to care and benefits optimizing value to veterans services and finally they invest and a little bit comment in the plan invest and our human capital and their well being but more importantly in their the president's budget provides one hundred twenty five billion dollars and twenty eleven point three billion dollars in discretionary resources and sixty four point seven billion dollars in mandatory funding our resources required to enhance health care in our national cemeteries we will expand access to health care through the activation of new and improved facilities by honoring the president's commitment to veterans who were exposed to the toxic effect of agent orange forty years ago by delivering on president obama's promise to provide health care eligibility to more priority group veterans and by making greater investments and hel the backlog we're requesting an unprecedented twenty seven percent increase in funding for our veterans administration primarily for staffing to address the growing increase in disability claims  as part of our plan to eliminate veterans homelessness over the next five years through an aggressive approach that is not just about not just about providing but includes housing  education and health care it's about prevention as well as taking veterans that are homeless off the street and then we partner with other departments department of housing and urban intended to meet veterans expectations and each of these three mission focus reduce the backlog and home we will achieve these objectives by developing innovative business processes and delivery systems appropriations requests provide the resources to continue our pursuit of the president's overarching goals for the department one is to transform and the second is to ensure veteran access to our benefits and services we still have much work to do our efforts are well begun but there is much more to be accomplished to meet our obligations to those who have defended the nation so again mr chairman thank you for the opportunity to appear before the department of veterans affairs for your leadership and support in that area and for mr kennedy was not here at the moment but his work in mental health which has been a tremendous support for many of the programs we've been love not just a job for you members we're going to follow the five minute rule and mr secretary i would just begin with one question after making the brief request and that my request is this after three years of significantly increasing funding for the v a we know there are still unmet needs out there each of you deals with those unmet needs every day i think it is vital to earn the trust  american people that we not only done the right thing to increase funding for veterans but that we're working hard every single day to see that every dollar that is being spent efficiently and effectively and for the highest priorities and i think that trust will be vital for us to have any opportunity to continue the kind of forward push we have been making for funding for the surge each of the leaders here to work as i know you must be trying to do veterans secretary my my one question would be on the claims backlog you referenced this briefly in your comments we know it's an enormous challenge it's frustrating that we started three years ago creasing funding for claims process or dramatically above budget request and actually funded and increased potentially eighty three hundred new claims processors could you summarize again how we got here and how do we get out what have been the numbers in terms of increased claims coming in each year what have been the numbers in terms of claims process and what's the endgame here is going to get worse before it gets number of claims nine hundred seventy seven thousand claims processed last year and then we received in return a million new claims and now this is a numbers game we have to get out ahead of and that's why our e number of claims that are coming in with that they'll be able to hire about four thousand additional claims process right now because the veteran to reach program that never applied for their benefit suddenly beginning to do but it's still a numbers game we have to get out ahead of it for the time being we have no information technology tools that will daily what our performances are variances are and we can begin to hone in on a standard so we think there's a good effort going to go into the backlog issue this year but this is part of the larger discussion of transforming the veteran benefits of ministration good folks who come to work every day who are paper bound and the health administration we have the world's see a dramatic reduction in the back national resources there will still be some increase in value and some increase in processing time but we intend to shape and control that such that by two thousand and thirteen we are back to where we the backlog and that's what the committee needs to be aware of as we go forward plus if you're successful eliminating certainly reducing the number of homeless veterans that's one hundred thirty five thousand potential new cases right there so you're to have an increase even though the funding is ramped way up because of the new benefits and outreach to make sure that all of that have access to the are coming now you said one hundred sixty one days and that's what i've heard as that we are linked and the important ways not operationally but certainly the way veterans are transition from active service whether they're active guard or reserve members our list of beneficiaries of the still has two children of civil war veterans today that we care for there are one hundred fifty one veterans beneficiaries on the spanish american that has to deal with and i don't want to lead you but having been really involved in veterans history project at the library of congress and having world war two korean veterans participate that never ever shared anything i think all the way through the vietnam era veterans were not encouraged to share their experiences and their and their mental challenges beyond their physical challenges and they were so much buried  today we ask them to come back and share what's going through their mind and their life and the challenges and then meet those needs so that they can return to productivity normalcy as much as possible and almost this is a new era to me i see this every day where this area is very different than the areas of our fighters in the past because so many of them i've been to funerals where they showed world war two veterans your consistent work on helping rural veterans not only across colorado but across this country country and i also want to commend you on the change of policy where you can help  rule veterans exit access to cemeteries you mentioned something about creating new cemeteries this year what are they which ones are they others actually introduced legislation that would allow the secretary of health and human services to negotiate prescription drug prices maybe even using the be a as a model we understand t be a pharmaceutical drug prices are about half of what medicare pays and this is a good way to save the american taxpayer money do you and the secretary of health and human services work together maybe do you give her any ideas or can you give her any ideas as to how we can maybe make something like this work congressman i have not personally had a of pharmaceutical prices and offered where appropriate to put people on our system but also to share what we've been able to achieve with other departments so my guess is i department i have not personally discussed with secretary sebelius i would encourage you to offer advice to the secretary you have a great model let me just also ask you in my district and public colorado  there is concerns about the removal of a b s o from public i guess he serves over twenty two thousand veterans and do you have any information or does anyone in your dedication time to all the problems that are being faced by your partner not just the big problems with the little problems and thank you for that a couple of questions first i want to i want to ask you about i saw in this year's budget you've got  kind of some money for a change in policy that relates to national cemeteries and understand it now i guess the old policy was if there are hundred fifty thousand veterans within seventy five mile radius radius then they would be eligible for a national cemetery are you going to change that to eighty thousand which as i understand is going to entitle an extra half a million veterans to be close to a national cemetery and i can tell  year and i don't think many things in congress that i've worked on have had as big an impact on me or the community that i represent as has this national cemetery is just magnificent and the way they've done it is you know they can fast track and while it's going to be a five hundred acre facility right now there are about twenty acres there fifteen ceremonies taking place every week there were a thousand headstones so i think an effort to make more timeline as as these are developed can you can you touch on on those three issues we arrived at a point where the old standard we were above the ninety percent satisfaction  standard we also looked around and realized that most states had a standard as well and they came up to varying locations up to eighty thousand mark and and there was a gap between our number and theirs and so we decided to serve states and also by moving our standards in the direction of providing additional burial capability you're all of those but five next year is the first installment and then we'll see what the requirements are because as you know better and populations tend to move as well and we need to stay abreast  secretary i'm so pleased at the v a is under your leadership and thank you for your service i i have a quick question need a quick clarification on the claims backlog and i want to talk about veterans homelessness in the time that i have i keep hearing different figures as to the total volume of claims dating back to the old this claim can you tell us what is the total number of claims in the system right now that varies from day to put in claims i don't know how far back that estimate goes but generally that inventory for the last several years at least has been for let me just broaden the aperture a little bit some place four to five hundred thousand  as i said last year pushed out nine hundred seventy seven thousand claims with rare exceptions the backlog usually isn't the same set of claims there may be some that are like you know  one thousand veterans are going to go to sleep without a bed without a roof without a home i consider this to be america's national shame and i know you do as well and i thank you for the focus that you brought to this issue you talked about the need for a kind of a synergistic calista integrated approach it's not just the funding it's the coordination in the collaboration that's vital can you give us some specifics however as to what kind of investments you talked about new investments for homeless veterans in order to achieve the goal of eliminating homelessness among veterans in five within five years tell specifically what you're proposing for this year and how how you intend to  people to solve it i do think what our approach is different is as you've indicated here we don't look at this as finding a hundred thirty one thousand into which we can put people overnight we have a prevention problem dollars into homelessness in two thousand and ten i would offer that eighty five percent of that money is medical services it's dealing with substance abuse depression p t s d t i suicide ideation as a whole raft of requirements that go along with that and then out of this year's money about five a million goes to the partners that we have out there on the ground four to five hundred of them who are really the creative geniuses and in dealing with almost they know the veterans they have dialogue with them they can help us get them off the streets and then into sa shelter which is what we work with them on and then we have to invest and in other ways education i would offer that the g i bill is a huge part of being able to  second the department of defense we provide education loans to the tune of nine billion dollars that's a huge part of this if there is an opportunity to improve on on the  dedicated to the work they do and so having an option to go vocational would be a good good adjustment here and they i mean it is the ultimate requirement for us to provide contracting mechanism we received about a billion dollars last year in the recovery act we competed ninety nine percent of that ninety eight percent of that and we got a twenty percent increase in our and in order not to find ending up on the streets we need programs that reach into those facilities and ensure we have a good transition for them as well many of the violent ones are where they need to be but many of them ended full committee former chairman the full committee who is we all know and as you know mr secretary it's been a distinguished lifetime of service and support of our servicemen and women and our veterans and i like to recognize you for any of the comments or questions you'd like to offer but thank you very much chairman for recognizing the i must say i was pleased to walk in just as my colleague mr israel is beginning to ask questions about homeless veterans and what we may or may not be doing in connection with all that if this subcommittee could commit itself to the direction that our secretary would take us relative and better and i believe we can strike a major chord towards trying around a horrendous problem the homeless less and less problem began i believe many years ago in california where we passed legislation that was designed to say too many of our citizens because of illness and otherwise are finding themselves in mental hospital and we had a tendency back then just want to throw the key away put them in a mental hospital and that's taken care of society doesn't have to worry anymore we then pass legislation to make it harder to put people in institutions and and hand in hand with that was supposed to be a clinical process whereby those people a very significant percentage being better and those people were supposed to go to clinics get mad at said it was never the follow up that would allow us to make sure the meds were taken and the like we have a potential model here to deal with veterans who make up such a high percentage of this population patrick kennedy and i have begun to talk about this issue as well and i would hope the subcommittee we try to come together and focus helps the secretary focus on getting it's a great opportunity for us and we is well and i really look forward to working with you and the members of this committee to see we make a major push in solving that problem thank you for your emphasis on that if i could add i think you lewis for the observation that i just want to offer what i wrestle with every day and that is you know i have two images of young people who serve and men and women who serve or have served in uniform the one we're all familiar with and that's every year i think around sixty percent of our high school graduates go on to college junior college university higher form of education of the remaining forty percent good many of them go into vocational training some directly in the workforce very small join the less than one percent of men and women wearing this country's uniform and of that one like to underscore what secretary shinseki said thank you for your tremendous leadership particularly and health care on this subcommittee we will we will miss you and the years ahead but our veterans will be the beneficiaries of your your covered for certain things that had not been designed earlier is it possible to deal with the with the veterans can't document that they were in vietnam or cambodia where would presence and vietnam at some point and to qualify doesn't require any steps related number of days or location or or where so what i need to do is narrow down the folks who may have only served in cambodia inserted by air extracted by air and find out what that population is and get you a better answer if i might provide that for the record thank you but as a follow up question to backlog question i'm told that word is out among our veterans that if you are experiencing post nine eleven g i bill benefits call your congressman and you will be paid within three to five days while we appreciate the proper spawn's to our inquiries i can only assume that this practice pushes everyone else further behind than forty at this point we are we have cases of veterans being told their claims take up to eight weeks which leaves the veteran little alternative but to involve the congress and i understand this budget is to help the problem but in the near term some new department can do to help veterans access their benefits in a timely manner and reduce congress role in the process card let me just say nine eleven g i bill we started without any automation tools we still don't have any automation tools first tools arrive in april one april one july november and i think they'll be a force of tools will be fully automated this year but last year we began at august zero veterans and rolled we finished in december with one hundred and seventy three thousand veterans in zero versus one hundred thirty one thousand at that point there or one hundred fifty three thousand veterans and rolled we were paying one hundred thirty one thousand of them were knocking these claims at about seven thousand a day the courts and the states the courts for turning loose people out of back in the in the sixty's and seventy's and the whole country failed the mental health community and by putting people on the streets that needed additional help and we continue to do that today it's a concept that was a freedom concept but they didn't have the backup to support these people once they're on the street and that's why we have so many confused  schizophrenia homeless people on the streets today because we just failed as a country to take care of that problem and each state has bears some responsibility and quite a bit of their own so it is an issue and if we carter with your background as a judge dealing with the mental health cases you know we would welcome your leadership and i will put together ad hoc group of our our subcommittee members to really focus like a laser on the homelessness  is love to do it that would be great we will stand we do have additional questions mr secretary so we'll stay in recess until the end of the third about thank