With more than 1,300 sites of care, VA operates the largest integrated health care system in the county.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
In Illinois, community, migrant, homeless and public housing health centers operate 268 primary care sites and serve close to 1 million patients every year.
What I want veterans to know is that VA is here to care for them. VA is a good system - health care wise, safety wise - highly comparable to any other system out there. Our oversight reviews tell us that. I'm very comfortable in the quality of our system.
We have a VA hospital back home in St. Louis. Like many of our colleagues, we hear continued concerns about the access and the service. I have seen a statistic that more than 60,000 veterans today are waiting more than 6 months for an appointment at a VA hospital.
When the Veterans Affairs Department implemented a program to provide home-based health care to veterans with multiple chronic conditions - many of the system's most expensive patients to treat - they received astounding results.
Whether you're a man or a woman, you should get the same degree of healthcare from our VA.
Providing health care is like building a house. The task requires experts, expensive equipment and materials, and a huge amount of coordination.
Those that have received care here in Des Moines at the VA center or the VA hospital here have said that they do receive good care. However, it's getting into the system - the wait periods. We have to do something about that. The care here has been good. We're not seeing that in other states.
I've never had to spend any time in the VA hospital, so I really can't speak for those guys.
When I'm president of the United States, we're going to have a VA that cares more about our veterans than about the bureaucrats who work at the VA.
Any veteran can tell you it is already hard enough to see a doctor down at the VA and get the health care they were promised when they signed up to serve this country.