What's New
| Congressman Mitchell: Pausing to Consider People Who REALLY Matter |
Chairman Harry Mitchell is a Hero to Veterans Nationwide August 20, 2010 (Arizona Republic) - It's been a month since I spoke to Rep. Harry Mitchell about suicides among military veterans and I'm just getting around to writing something. |
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| What Obama Won't Say Tonight About US Withdrawal from Iraq |
| August 31, 2010 (ConsortiumNews) - President Barack Obama’s aides say his speech this evening marking the end of "combat operations" in Iraq will avoid the vainglorious aspects of President George W. Bush’s infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech in 2003. We’ll see. |
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| Lawsuit Update: Prudential's Half-Billion in Dirty Secret Profits |
Families of Dead Soldiers Sue Insurer Over Its Handling of Survivors’ Benefits August 29, 2010 (New York Times) - Vickie Castro’s only child was killed six years ago just before Christmas, when a suicide bomber blew himself up inside an Army mess tent in Mosul, Iraq, killing more than 20 people. |
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| Op-Ed: Cost of War Must Also Include Caring for Our Veterans |
Overlooked Cost of Iraq / Afghanistan Wars: Our Veterans' Healthcare and Benefits August 15, 2010 (San Francisco Chronicle) - Two years after an Army specialist saw half his platoon torn apart in Iraq, he hanged himself in a California backyard. |
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| VA Secretary Shinseki's Open Message to Gulf War Veterans |
| August 11, 2010, Washington, DC (VA Press Release) - August 2010 marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the Gulf War, launched with Operation Desert Shield and followed by Operation Desert Storm. VA honors this milestone with a renewed commitment to improving our responsiveness to the challenges facing Gulf War Veterans. |
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Veterans Administration Cultural Change - The Future of Government Health Care?
Written by Bruce Clarke
Friday, 21 August 2009 09:18
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August 20, 2009 - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) operates the largest integrated health care system in the nation. Of the 23 million veterans in the country only about 8 million are enrolled in the system. How many of those other 15 million veterans are eligible is unknown-eligibility is an issue in change as I write this. Many veterans feel that the VA has unreasonably denied their and others' claims. A recent legal decision may potentially be a landmark decision and be the beginning to an end to this bureaucratic phenomenon that has caused at least one veteran a severe disservice.
Mr. Cushman demonstrated that his injury meets the service connection requirement of United States Code. Mr. Cushman has a constitutional right to have his claim for veteran's disability benefits decided according to fundamentally fair procedures. We find that this right was violated due to the presence of an improperly altered medical record in Mr. Cushman's file. We vacate the June 6, 2008 decision of the Veterans Court and remand the case with instructions to grant Mr. Cushman a new hearing before the Board to determine de novo and without the presence of the alterations in his medical record whether Mr. Cushman was unable to secure a substantially gainful occupation between May 3, 1977 and August 31, 1994, because of his service-connected disability. The court case and the need to change the VA's culture also have something to say about the current health care debate. Will the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit have legal authority over whatever boards and regulatory agencies are created to manage the program? Should it? How much bigger must it be? What do you think?
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