What's New
| VA Secretary Pressed by Senator on High Percentage of Wrongly Denied Benefit Claims |
March 16, 2010, Washington, DC (CQ Politics) - A leading Republican senator on Tuesday asked Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki to explain why so many veterans’ benefit claims are wrongly denied, resulting in a high rate of reversal on appeal. |
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| Profile of New Veterans' Courts in New York Times |
Defendants Fresh From War Find Service Counts in Court - VCS Supports Veterans' Courts March 15, 2010, Charleston, West Virginia (New York Times) — When Judge Robert C. Chambers handed down Timothy Oldani’s federal sentence for selling stolen military equipment on eBay, he gave the former Marine a break. |
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| Presdent Obama Donated $250,000 of Nobel Prize Money to Fisher House |
March 11, 2010, Washington, DC (New York Times) - President Obama made good on his promise to give his $1.4 million Nobel Prize money to charity, releasing the names on Thursday of the organizations that will benefit. |
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| Philanthropist Bobby Willis to Build New $3.3 Billion Hospital for VA in Farmington, NM for Rural and Native American Veterans |
Proposed state-of-the-art Kirtland veterans clinic could provide as many as 8,000 jobs March 14, 2010, Farmington, New Mexico (Farmington Daily Times) — A proposed veterans complex in Kirtland centered around a new hospital, backed by a wealthy entrepreneur and costing an estimated $3.3 billion promises to bring state-of-the-art medicine and other benefits to veterans, as well as 8,000 jobs to the local economy. |
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| Dr. Haley at UTSW Presents Compelling Brain Images Showing Gulf War Illness |
VCS Asks VA: Since UTSW Research Remains Vital to Understanding Gulf War Illness, Then Why Did a Handful of VA Staff in Washington Impede UTSW Contract and Then End Funding for UTSW? March 9, 2010, Salt Lake City, Utah (Science News) - Nearly two decades after vets began returning from the Middle East complaining of Gulf War Syndrome, the federal government has yet to formally accept that their vague jumble of symptoms constitutes a legitimate illness. Here, at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting, yesterday, researchers rolled out a host of brain images – various types of magnetic-resonance scans and brain-wave measurements – that they say graphically and unambiguously depict Gulf War Syndrome. |
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Editorial Column: Obama Can Help Vets
Written by Army Times
Monday, 24 August 2009 09:28
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August 24, 2009 - President Barack Obama and Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki met in early August with Military Times and other military journalists in a bid to restore confidence in the administration's commitment to delivering quality care to America's veterans.
They said all the right things: • VA should reach out to vets in need and bring them into the system. • VA must install a comprehensive, up-to-date electronic medical records system. • More resources must be dedicated to helping veterans with mental health problems. • Veterans' health benefits will not be reduced or affected in any way as part of the national health care reform initiative. • And it is a disservice to veterans to deny links between health problems and war-zone burn pits before all the evidence is in - just as it was premature to reject claims arising from exposure to 1950s atomic bomb tests, Agent Orange in Vietnam and toxins in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Thus far, the Obama administration has made a good-faith effort to fulfill its campaign promises by boosting VA funding and building on efforts to improve VA services. But with new claims expected for years to come from Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, VA will need still more resources in the future. The administration is going to have to demonstrate stiff political will to continue to fully fund VA. At the same time, Obama will have to demand efficiencies and accountability that are all but countercultural within VA. This is an opportunity to break with a sad tradition of short-changing VA and the people it serves. There can be no greater priority than truly taking care of those who have sacrificed so much for their country.
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