In the last 10 years, the Department of Veterans Affairs budget has more than doubled, reaching nearly $200 billion. Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked that if the debt limit is raised and federal spending levels increase, the treasury must provide another $22 billion to transfer to the VA. That extra spending was supposedly… Read more »
Recently, the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity met for a contentious hearing on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ continued problems dispersing GI Bill benefits on time and in the right amounts. Since August, VA IT glitches and systems errors have resulted in miscalculated and delayed housing stipends for student veterans. These problems have… Read more »
Aaron Merritt left the Army after three combat tours. Just before leaving the military, he was diagnosed with ulcerative colitis. Naturally, he turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system to continue treating his condition once he left the service. A few months into treatment at the VA, Aaron became intensely sick. Despite… Read more »
There are some important updates on developing stories at the Department of Veterans Affairs this month. Many student veterans are still waiting for their GI Bill benefits to kick in this semester, and a Minnesota news outlet further investigated a nationwide #VAFail it helped break. Here are the top #VAFails in October. The Office of… Read more »
Traumatic brain injuries have become the “signature wound” of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Estimates from the Department of Defense and Veteran’s Brain Injury Center show 22 percent of combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan are from brain injuries. Many more with blast injuries may also have sustained TBIs. Since 2000, instances of TBI… Read more »
Back in July, the Tampa Bay Times reported on allegations that Department of Veterans Affairs staff at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital improperly canceled radiology exams. According to the allegations, staff at the Tampa-area facility canceled hundreds of exams in an effort to clean out the backlog of orders. In response, Haley became the… Read more »
The Department of Veterans Affairs has an important deadline coming up. By Oct. 4, the department must submit a progress report on its plan to implement the VA MISSION Act, which will overhaul veterans’ health care so that more have access to medical care outside the VA. That much-needed reform can’t come soon enough. The… Read more »
