At Tuesday's town hall event, Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS) spoke about potential cuts to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
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00:01Good afternoon.
00:02How are you doing?
00:03All right.
00:04I'm glad to see you here.
00:05My question is pertaining to veterans.
00:08I know you answered part of my question when you spoke about the oversight committee that
00:12the secretaries and them haven't made it through there yet.
00:15And this secretary that is over at the VA now, he's proposing so many cuts and cutbacks
00:21on different benefits and stuff like that.
00:24And through hearing and reading about how a lot of permanent VA veterans like myself,
00:32I'm a 100% DAV, they're talking about engaging and reevaluating and reviewing a lot of cases that's already,
00:40that's been there to cut veterans pay and cut the benefits there at the VA service.
00:47Because at some of the facilities, staff has been reduced.
00:53And I am, like I say, 100% DAV and then I get Social Security too.
00:59I don't work or nothing like that.
01:01But what is possible for us veterans to look forward to with this new VA secretary?
01:08Because this guy, he has really upped the flames on,
01:13looks like shedding much of the veteran's benefits down for some of us.
01:18While it's being like here in a rural area, we have to travel to different facilities.
01:24And most of us, we worked and we did this and that, like say, I was in the service myself.
01:32But it bothers me that my benefits might be covered because I did serve my country.
01:38I went, I wasn't drafted, I volunteered.
01:42I went and served my country.
01:45I mean, I was, got disabled in the service.
01:48And it took me over 20 some years.
01:51Made pretty close to 30 to get where I am now because of something that would have.
01:57I had cold exposure.
02:00A lot of people don't know what cold exposure is.
02:04Cold exposure is the next thing to frostbite.
02:06Depending on the pigment of your skin, it would determine whether you got cold exposure or you got frostbite.
02:12It took me 20 years for them to figure out that I had frostbite because of the pigment of my skin.
02:19But I depend on my veterans.
02:22So that's why I'm concerned about this guy that's up there now.
02:25Well, first of all, thank you so much for your service.
02:30You did a lot for this country.
02:33And, you know, our veterans are very precious.
02:37We said if you go to the service and fortunate to come back, we'll provide you health care for life.
02:47We'll educate you for whatever you want to be in life.
02:52And if you want a home, we'll finance your home.
02:57So we made that commitment going in.
03:00And now on your way home, it's unfair for this country to take any of those opportunities away from you.
03:09But it's also unfair for them to make it difficult for you to access the system.
03:15And when you've taken all these employees out of the system with no direction on how I'm to participate, it is a problem.
03:27And that's why I raised the issue for veterans because in so many instances, some of our veterans have to go over 100 miles to get health care.
03:38And we don't have public transportation.
03:42So they either got to hire someone or basically get there the best way they can.
03:49So we encourage the veterans, work through your American Legion, your VFW, your other traditional organizations.
03:59They are raising holy hell on behalf of the veterans because they know potentially what's going to happen if these cuts go through.
04:09And look, we only had two Republicans to vote against the last budget last time.
04:20All the Democrats voted against it, but we don't have a majority.
04:24So all of the cuts that I'm laying out to you are voted and passed solely by the Republicans in Congress.
04:34You got to talk to your Republican members if you know any, but you do have two senators.
04:43They need to hear from you about the potential harm that these cuts will happen to you or people you know.
04:51It's so important for them to know that.
04:54Yes, sir.
04:56Senator, thank you for coming.
04:58I'm Dr. Buckles, and I'll tell you, we're talking about Medicare and Medicaid.
05:04Just in the last two months, well, this year alone, Humana, I use Humana for example.
05:11Humana used to, if I would charge $150 for a visit, Humana used to pay me maybe $90.
05:19Now they're paying me like $60 from that visit.
05:24I'm a physician.
05:26I'm not a nurse practitioner.
05:27I'm a MD.
05:28There's three of us around here.
05:30We work, I'm up at 2 o'clock in the morning sometimes, working all up at 2 o'clock in the morning,
05:36going through charts, going through patient charts.
05:39I came back to Mississippi because this is where I'm from, in Franklin County.
05:43And I have over 200 people on my waiting list.
05:47I don't take no more patient because I can't take no more.
05:49I'm tired.
05:50I won't quit every day, but I have a duty to African Americans here in this place.
05:57And what gets me is that we don't understand sometimes.
06:00As African Americans, we don't want to vote.
06:03And it takes, and I don't, you know, and we'll go to places where if they see 60 people a day, you cannot have prevented healthcare.
06:13I try to sit down, spend time with my patients, educate you on your GFR, educate you on what your cholesterol is, what your LDL is, your HDL.
06:27I try to educate so I don't just treat you like cattle.
06:33It's hard to do that when the insurance don't want to pay you.
06:37And no doctors want to come here.
06:39We recruit all the time.
06:40I'm on the board here.
06:41I'm on the hospital board.
06:42We try to recruit all the time.
06:44Nobody wants to come here and to go through this every day and to get no sleep.
06:49God rest Dr. Todd, but there's no Dr. Todd no more.
06:54God rest his soul, but the younger doctors would not do this.
06:58I'm 52 years old, been a doctor for 26 years, and I'm tired of primary healthcare.
07:05So we have to do our part to vote.
07:08To vote!
07:12Because once I see a patient, and I pay my nurse $20, and I pay my staff after $60,
07:18there's nothing left for me to pay myself half of the time.
07:22That's why I have to work the ER.
07:24I have to go work here, and go work there to make a living for myself,
07:28and then come back to my practice to take care of people who get mad when you say,
07:32you owe me $2, and you want to fight my staff because you owe me $2.
07:37I'm serious.
07:38In my staff, you want to push the staff out.
07:40We got to make a change in ourselves because there's no more.
07:44The young people are not coming here as doctors.
07:47Okay?
07:48So, Senator, thank you.
07:50Yeah, I'm going to get my back.
07:51I'm telling you the truth.
07:52Everybody don't hear the truth around here.
07:54I'm the only black family practice doctor here.
07:57The only one.
07:58The only one in family practice, black family practice doctor here.
08:03The rest of them are nurse practitioners.
08:04Thank God for the nurse practitioners.
08:06We got to make a difference.
08:07We got to vote.
08:08Yeah.
08:09Well, thank you so much, doc.
08:14The other part is we had to get a federal law passed for nurse practitioners to do work in this state because the doctors didn't want it.
08:29And we said to the doctors, wait, we don't have enough folk to go around.
08:34We had to do the same thing for physician assistants because the only physician assistants in the state was at the VA hospital.
08:43And so we were gradually trying to change some of the legislation, but we really got to figure out how we can get some of our young talent back.
08:56You know, you got to help us.
08:59And so the county can help send folk to college, to med school because of a shortage.
09:10And they in return, they got to agree to come back and work in this community.
09:17They said, well, we've never done that before.
09:21OK, you can do it now.
09:23If that's a priority, you can put in the budget coming up for October 1, you can put some money in there for medical scholarships.
09:37Send some folk from this community to medical school.
09:42And they sign a contract that they got to come back.
09:46If not, they got to pay all the money.
09:49If they come back, then the loan's forgiven.
09:54And if we can get them here for three or four years, they just might stay.
10:00But we got to do that.
10:02So there are a lot of ways we can do it, but we have to work together.
10:08The federal government creates the incentives so that a lot of these things can happen.
10:15I encourage you to keep up with the news that's going on around this country.
10:24And look, I know it's tough because it's something every day.
10:29But you can only imagine most of the time we hear it when you hear it because there are no hearings going on in many of the committees of jurisdiction.
10:43And so because of that, we're challenged.
10:49I want to acknowledge your sheriff who's here tonight.
10:54Sheriff.
10:56Now, you know, I got 29 sheriffs.
11:02You know, now I'm about to really go out on a limb.
11:09Y'all got the best or one of the best sheriffs that I know.
11:20Okay.
11:21All right.
11:23You know, it's not that he can just read and write and all that kind of stuff.
11:29He cares about the community.
11:31And that's what's so important is when I grew up, every time I saw a policeman, I'd break and run.
11:40You know, now you have a policeman that you go to with your problems.
11:46And that's important.
11:48That's what the power of putting somebody in office that you know and you respect.
11:55And I think that's so important.
11:57What the doctor said about putting people in places, the only reason in a lot of our opinion is what's happening right now.
12:08A lot of people didn't go and vote.
12:11And because of not voting, you know, we're dealing with this retribution that the winner said he was going to do.
12:23You know, people ask me, say, well, I don't understand why the president is doing this.
12:28I said, I do.
12:29He said he was going to do it.
12:31And he's doing it.
12:33And so it's not as if he decided to do it after.
12:42He let the cat out the bag while he was running.
12:47And if you heard something called Project 2025, just look at it.
12:54And a lot of the things that are being done are scripted in that Project 2025 of which our president said he didn't know anything about it.
13:07He didn't know anything.
13:09And so the person who wrote it, he nominated him to be head of the Office of Management and Budget.
13:20You know what I'm saying?
13:26But he's the president.
13:28I respect the position.
13:30His policies are not good.
13:33And every opportunity, when they're not good, I'm going to oppose it.
13:38If they make sense, I'll support it.
13:41It just so happens.
13:46Ain't none of them making sense.
13:49So we'll just have to work through that.
13:53Let me thank all of you for coming.
13:58Jackie will be back work shortly.
14:01And it's so important.
14:06You know, people got kindred spirits.
14:11And, you know, you can tell good people when you meet them.
14:18And in my opinion, she's one of them.
14:22And, you know, that grandson of mine, every time he does wrong, he said,
14:30Paw Paw, I'm going to do better next time.
14:34And, Pastor, folk come to you, and you're in the forgiving business.
14:40And I would be less than a person not to do the same thing.
14:47And so I'm comfortable with it.
14:51I talk to key folk and to a person.
14:57Nobody said, don't do it.
15:01And so I'm at peace with it.
15:07So I want you to know that.
15:10Now, just, they're going to holler.
15:14That's all right.
15:17January 6th taught me a lot about this country.
15:21I learned a lot about what happens when people are misinformed.
15:32I learned a lot about how precious our democracy is.
15:38And how it's still an experiment this far in.
15:45And how misinformed people can go in the wrong direction.
15:51And so that's what we are faced with now.
15:53But I still have faith that we'll turn this around.
15:57But we can't allow ourselves to become anything other than loyal American citizens.
16:09Stay here and fight for what we think is right.
16:13And in the end, I'm convinced that it'll work out.
16:22Pastor, I'm going to let you close us in a word of prayer.
16:26And thank you all for coming.
16:31Somebody said, when will the office reopen?
16:37It said, when the office will reopen, Monday.
16:43How about that?
16:44All right.
16:45Thank you very much.