Free Republic

Hard-working Virginians deserve access to affordable health care. This may be Virginia's last chance to expand Medicaid. Contact Gov. McAuliffe today and urge him to veto the state budget! Gov. McAuliffe has a tough decision to make before this Sunday at midnight: whether to sign or veto the state budget. Why? Because state legislators sent the governor a budget that does not include expanding Medicaid for hard-working Virginians who earn up to $16,000 a year. These 400,000 Virginians are our friends, neighbors, family. Many are age 50-64, struggling in jobs without health benefits. They are counting on state lawmakers to...

Yesterday Equality Virginia was honored to receive a proclamation from Governor Terry McAuliffe that recognizes June 2014 as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender pride month. The proclamation noted that the Commonwealth celebrates its diverse LGBT community, is dedicated to fostering acceptance and preventing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, and that LGBT Virginians contribute to a stronger Commonwealth. We couldn't agree more; and will continue to work towards that ideal. The support we have received from the Governor has been invaluable. He understands that fairness and inclusion are important to Virginia's families and to the commonwealth as a...

The Department of Veteran Affairs is drawing online criticism for tweeting about the world’s oceans on Monday. The VA tweeted about how the world’s oceans are under threat from over-fishing, pollution and even climate change. Veterans Affairs @DeptVetAffairs Our ocean is under threat. Join people all over the world and make a difference. #OurOcean2014 http://thndr.it/1tP7rrQ 9:02 AM - 16 Jun 2014 The tweet linked to a press release from the State Department that let people tweet out their own support for a number of ocean-related issues, such as avoiding shark-fin soup and only consuming seafood caught in a sustainable manner....

The embattled Phoenix branch of the Department of Veterans Affairs apparently has paid out $10 million in bonuses during the past three years, far more than previously reported. The Arizona Republic obtained and published the bonus records after seeking them from the VA for months. The documents showed 4,188 bonuses were paid in that period to more than 2,150 employees.

Summer doldrums is here.  That time between the end of basketball and hockey season, and before football season starts, when lazy baseball games stretch on, the days are long, and everyone takes their vacations.  There’s plenty of reasons the Obama White House would like us to just forget the next two months and take a national vacation. Let’s review the White House’s woe-list: Lois Lerner’s imminent sacrifice has been kicked down the road with the IRS claim that the dog computer ate her homework email.  Conveniently, only the emails from the time period where she was (allegedly) masterminding the...

As I see it, and saw it, serving my 4 years in the US Navy Submarine Service on the USS Grenadier (SS-525) and the USS George C. Bancroft (SSBN -643) as a TM 3 (MT) was a privilege. I owed my country my time & energy for providing me with the privilege of living in the greatest nation ever to arise on the face of the Earth. I'm not owed anything. Thank you America, for letting me serve.

U.S. officials are in discussions to temporarily shelter unaccompanied immigrant children on the campus of shuttered Saint Paul’s College in Lawrenceville. Faced with a surge in the numbers of minors arriving on their own from Central America, representatives of the federal Department of Health and Human Services visited the campus this week and are nearing an agreement to use Saint Paul’s facilities for at least six months, sources in Brunswick County said.

Spending on veterans’ health care could double in three years under the Senate’s solution to the long waits experienced by thousands seeking medical care at VA hospitals and clinics, according to congressional budget experts. […] Both the Senate bill and a House version also passed this past week would dramatically expand government-paid health care. They would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to pay private providers to treat qualifying veterans who can’t get prompt appointments at the VA’s nearly 1,000 hospitals and outpatient clinics or who live at least 40 miles from one of them. …

According to a report from the Daily Caller, the Obama administration has been aware of allegations about the VA’s secret waiting lists since 2010: The administration knew that an internal VA investigation into secret “paper” waiting lists was conducted in 2010 under (recently-resigned Secretary Eric) Shinseki. According to an August 17, 2010 VA Office of Inspector General (OIG) report entitled “Review of Alleged Use of Unauthorized Wait Lists at the Portland VA Medical Center”: “We conducted this review to determine the validity of an allegation that senior officials in Veterans Integrated Service Network 20 (VISN) instructed employees at the Portland...

The founder and chair of a group dedicated to reducing hospital infection deaths told the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Thursday that a bill backed by the Senate Wednesday to address the backlog of veterans awaiting medical care “is designed to protect union jobs, not ailing vets.” The bill drafted by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, “will not save the lives of vets stuck on the wait list,” said Dr. Betsy McCaughey, chair of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. “This bill as currently written is designed to protect union...

President Obama is embroiled in two Veterans Affairs scandals: 1) fabricated documents and secret waiting lists for health care, with dozens of veterans dying while waiting for appointments; and 2) waiting lists for disability benefits. The former is now the subject of a criminal investigation opened by the Phoenix office of the FBI just days after the release of a bipartisan letter from 21 U.S. senators to the Department of Justice calling for a criminal investigation. “Evidence of secret waiting times, falsification of records, destruction of documents, and other potential criminal wrongdoing has appalled and angered the nation, and imperiled

The Department of Veterans Affairs ordered a Pittsburgh VA hospital to block attempts by two congressmen to find out about hundreds of patients languishing on the hospital’s wait list, according to a CNN report. Congressional sources told CNN that Rep. Tim Murphy (R., Penn.) received a call from Pittsburgh VA director and CEO Terry Gerigk Wolf, who said that the hospital had passed an internal audit on patient wait times “with flying colors.” “It is my belief the purpose of the unannounced call was not to provide me the facts on patient wait times at the Pittsburgh VA, but was...

The VA Scandal began at the Phoenix VA Health Care System where administrators earned promotions and bonuses by shunting patients who needed treatment into fake waiting lists. As many as 40 veterans had died while waiting for care and 1,715 veterans in the Phoenix VA Health Care System had waited more than 90 days for an appointment. A retired Navy serviceman died of bladder cancer after being put on a 7-month waiting list after blood was found in his urine. He finally received an appointment a week after his death.

Because of copyright rules I did not create a link, you will have to copy and paste to read. I hope it is OK to do it this way. Audit: More than 57,000 await first VA appointment (TN) http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2014/jun/10/audit-more-57000-await-first-va-appointment/

What have we learned from the VA scandal? One of the greatest lessons we should learn is how we are seen by the government. In any "service" government provides... the recipients represent a cost to the system. The only way to control costs in the system is to ration the services provided (yes... death panels). This is what happened in the VA system... the bureaucrats were well-incentivized to control costs (AKA: find ways to not actually deliver services). The justification for government-run healthcare was that we would no longer be victimized by evil corporations who chase immoral profits as their...

Tens of thousands of veterans are stuck in backlogs awaiting care at VA facilities, the department said Monday in a report that confirms employees regularly cooked the books, often under pressure from supervisors, to try to hide long wait times. The audit found that 70 percent of Veterans Affairs facilities surveyed placed patients on alternate wait lists, meaning many of those veterans probably weren’t recorded in the official reports back to headquarters and were used to dole out bonuses to VA executives.

Clearly the Obama administration wanted to use the Bergdahl release as a way of creating a positive diversion and getting the VA scandal behind them. As usual, they miscalculated, and depended on the liberal media for a bailout – however, that is failing as well. The rabbit hole gets deeper surrounding the Taliban release with Obama and his minions telling more lies to cover the initial lies. But the VA scandal is also getting worse — a lot worse. Remember the president stated “IF these allegations are true?” Well Mr. President, they sure as heck are, so the ball is...

Congressional Representative Jim Moran’s (D) retirement from his seat in Virginia’s gerrymandered 8th Congressional District (Arlington County, Alexandria City, Falls Church City, and Fairfax County (part)) has resulted in that district’s first serious Democrat primary race in decades. If some gun owners have their way, Republicans, Libertarians, and Independent voters will decide this election because Virginia allows voters from all parties to vote in any party’s primary. Gun rights group leaders such as OpenCarry.org’s co-founder John Pierce, a Virginia lawyer and socially liberal member of both the ACLU and the American Bar Association’s Second Amendment Civil Rights Litigation Subcommittee, have...

In a Monday National Journal column about how many Democrats are allegedly saying they have "quit" on Obama — claims I find quite hollow, given that no one asserting this has yet had the guts to go on the record — Ron Fournier quotes "a senior White House official" with a head-shaking take on the Veterans Administration scandal. Specifically, "Questioning why the Veterans Affairs Department hadn´t been overhauled months ago as promised by Obama (actually that was seven years ago, plus six other times, Ron — Ed.), a senior White House official conceded privately to me, ´We don´t do the

And they’ve been waiting a long time, too. The Associated Press reports on an internal audit from more than 700 VA facilities shows that 57,000 veterans have waited 90 or more days for their initial medical appointment, let alone for any advanced care that might be needed. Another 64,000 have been enrolled in the VA health-care system for more than ten years without ever getting to see a doctor: The Veterans Affairs Department says more than 57,000 patients are still waiting for initial medical appointments at VA hospitals and clinics 90 days or more after requesting them. An additional...