I have been working on this for more years than I care to remember in terms of the ombudsman position and the bill of rights, and I was thrilled to have this committee move forward with the ombudsman position. I was also pleased to see us get in depth in terms of the bill of rights. But as I've said repeatedly, the bill of rights was not the more important piece of legislation. The ombudsman position was the more important piece. The bill of rights is a complement to the ombudsman position. And it is a living document, so if we want to go back and revisit that, we certainly can.
But in response to what Mr. Stoffer said, I agree with him. I like to see things move along quickly as well. The health care review portion that this committee agreed to at the beginning of the year is where we can make those changes for the VIP program.
I personally want to move forward with that, because I recognize the fact that there are many veterans and widows out there who have been waiting for this kind of response from this committee and this government. This government is more than prepared to move forward, and if the committee wants to be a part of that, we have to get moving on the health care review.
As I pointed out to you earlier, these people don't have a lot of time. So if we're going to make improvements, and you want to be doing that as a committee instead of having the government make the decision, then we have to move forward with the health care review. There are many widows out there, like Mrs. Carter, who are counting on us.