Free Republic

Doctors say deaths, can be linked to delays. A starkly different view than the one painted by VA inspector general’s report. Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., questioning of acting VA IG, Richard Griffin, about whether IG was corruptly influenced by VA officials.... Miller banged his gavel to stop acting shill Griffin's speel. “You want the truth?” Griffin, incredulously. "As a physician” Katherine Mitchell, I believe the OIG case review systematically overlooked relationships between delays and deaths. Mitchell, joined by VA doctor Samuel Foot. Foot, "VA IG’s office used a criminal activity, as damage control, rather than using it to get to...

Two Veterans Affairs Medical Center employees were arrested last week for using VA facilities to smuggle and deal cocaine, the Department of Justice recently announced. Robert Tucker and Erik Casiano had been using the U.S. Postal Service and the mailroom of a VA Medical Center in the Bronx to receive and distribute cocaine since “at least November 2013,” according to the press release. Tucker has worked for the VA since 1997, and in 2012 was promoted to supervisor of the Logistics Warehouse and Mail Center. Casiano, a pipefitter in the plumbing department, had worked for the center since 2012. All...

MINNEAPOLIS — Two former employees of the Minneapolis VA Medical Center allege they were pressured to falsify patient appointment dates and medical records to hide delays, a television station reported. In a report that aired Wednesday night, the ex-employees told KARE-TV that in some cases, they were told to falsify medical records by writing that patients had declined follow-up treatments when, in reality, they say the veterans had never been contacted. The former VA workers fear that patients' lives may be at risk because they say some cases involved suspected colon cancer. "Some of them were getting missed altogether," said...

The Veterans Affairs clinic in Wasilla is without doctors after the three physicians working under contract over the summer decided not to renew those. A nurse practitioner, who transferred from Anchorage last week, is now carrying the 1,000-patient caseload. The Mat-Su Veterans Affairs Community Based Outpatient Clinic is supposed to have two full-time doctors but has been down one since 2012. The last full-time doctor left in May, KTVA reported (http://bit.ly/1rxNG8o ). "There were three physicians at various times who had been selected to come work there and had dropped out for various reason or there were credentialing issues with...

While the national media is busy convincing the American electorate that the Supreme Court ruled that no one can ever touch a birth control pill ever again because the GOP hates women, let me present to you a story that would be a national outrage emblematic of half the country’s values…if it involved a Republican.

Officials say missing pilot fatally injured Posted: Aug 27, 2014 10:30 AM EDT Updated: Aug 29, 2014 1:18 AM EDT By Rachel Lucas, Digital Journalist - bio | email Officials have confirmed Thursday that the pilot in Wednesday's crash F-15C Eagle was fatally injured. No word on whether officials have found the pilot's body. The pilot's name is being withheld pending notification of family members.

It wasn’t exactly the roaring, adoring, campaign-style crowd President Barack Obama is accustomed to. On Tuesday, the president spoke to the American Legion’s national convention, facing a crowd of veterans deeply concerned about widespread corruption at the Veterans Administration and the resultant deaths of some veterans awaiting health care. So when Obama began by lecturing the veterans about cynicism and explaining his most recent foreign policy choices — instead of addressing the VA crisis — the audience clearly wasn’t pleased. Fox News cameras captured a sea of blank or frowning faces looking silently back at the president as he paused...

President Barack Obama faced a tough crowd on Tuesday – American military veterans – and fell flat on his applause lines as he failed to win over the American Legion's convention-goers.The 35-minute speech seemed to have reminded the audience of the stark divide between the White House's policy choices and the feelings of the men and women often called on to carry them out.A Virginia legionnaire who served in the U.S. Marine Corps told MailOnline that 'a small group of Obama's admirers – and there are some here – sat near the front and tried to generate applause for him...

The VA Inspector has been investigating the deaths for months and has now shared draft of his findings with Top Officials. The new VA Secretary McDonald said: "It is important to note" that while the report documents deficiencies in quality and substantial delays in care, OIG was unable to conclusively assert that the absence of quality or care directly caused the death of any these victims. This May, the inspector found that 1,700 veterans, waiting for primary care appointments at the Phoenix VA, did not show up on the wait list. An additional 1,800 will have to wait at three...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Department of Veterans Affairs says investigators have found no proof that delays in care caused any deaths at a VA hospital in Phoenix, deflating an explosive allegation that helped expose a troubled health care system in which veterans waited months for appointments while employees falsified records to cover up the delays. Revelations that as many as 40 veterans died while awaiting care at the Phoenix VA hospital rocked the agency last spring, bringing to light scheduling problems and allegations of misconduct at other hospitals as well. The scandal led to the resignation of former VA Secretary...

Okay. I'm not sure how I missed the updates/reports other than the fact that they appear not to have been posted here at FR. Principal source link is the PDF report to Congress in regards to a prior post here:("Final Report to the Congressional Defense Committees in Response to the Joint Explanatory Statement Accompanying the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2014, page 90, “Radiation Exposure” "). (link will open/download the PDF) An update on the USS Ronald Reagan crew lawsuit re their mysterious illnesses in the wake of Operation Tomodachi is here: ("USS Reagan Sailors’ Lawsuit Found ‘Lacking’ Nuclear Expert...

MEDIA CONTACT: Josh Baumgartner 703.766.4467 info@fairfaxgop.org The fight for the integrity of the election process and against election fraud took a big step forward Wednesday in Fairfax. The General Registrar for Fairfax County, Ms. Cameron Quinn, was presented with a challenge to the registration of over 14,500 voters in Fairfax County. The challenge was based upon information showing that those voters are registered to vote in both Fairfax County and Maryland. The challenge was made by Mr. Reagan George, President of the Virginia Voters Alliance (VVA), on behalf of himself and three other residents of Fairfax County, under the provisions...

In 2010, the Veterans Administration rolled out a new online application that promised the nation’s veterans a quick, easy way to access one of the chief benefits of military service: enrollment in the VA’s vast network of hospitals and health care facilities. Veterans across the country responded. In fact, the online system did the opposite of what it promised, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has found. Instead of making it easier and faster to apply for benefits, the online system sent some veterans who used it into administrative limbo where their applications received no action, delaying their access to...

the insane ways that the VA focused on solar energy and wind towers over vets. Three years before Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki would be forced out of his job because of the veterans who had died under him, he visited the Massachusetts National Cemetery. He wasn’t there to see the men and women who had died because of him. While vets were dying, Obama and Shinseki had turned their attention to something truly important; seeing to it that all the cemeteries where they were being buried had wind or solar power. ... The cemetery turbine had cost $533,000....

The Obama VA may be running a back door gun registry under the guise of a “free gun lock” program. A Progressives Today reader sent in this letter they received with the following worrisome comment attached: Is this a backdoor way of the VA attempting to create a gun registry on vets? I think it is… (Click to enlarge) Dear Veteran:The James E. Van Zandt VA Medial Center is extending the opportunity to request free gun locks to the Veterans we serve. We are providing this opportunity because, as your partner in health care, we are committed to keeping you...

President Obama touted the newly passed Veterans Affairs reform bill Thursday as he signed the measure into law and lamented the scandal that triggered it. But a review of records by Fox News shows the president – despite the urgency he placed publicly on the crisis – only met one-on-one with then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki once during the scandal. The records, provided through a Freedom of Information Act request, showed they met on May 30, the day Shinseki resigned.

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) misled Congress on the number of veteran deaths in its health care system, adding to a growing list of untruths that VA has told congressmen trying to investigate the scandal-plagued department. The House Committee on Veterans Affairs, chaired by Republican Rep. Jeff Miller, is the latest victim of VA’s dishonesty. VA provided the committee an April 7, 2014 fact sheet purporting to show all of the cases of delays and preventable veteran deaths it oversaw in its gastrointestinal care in the last fifteen years. “As a result of the consult delay issue VA discovered...

I' m an old Freeper just getting into the VA healthcare system in Eugene, Oregon. Today's first appt went great. Met my PCP, she gave me a free blood pressure monitor to keep a log. And my monthly prescriptions prices are lower (I don't have any other insurance). I am impressed so far. Look forward to future visits.

A leading veterans group is hailing two key provisions of the proposed Veterans Affairs reform bill as critical to improving care for our nation’s heroes but warns that spending needs to be controlled and oversight must be even more intense to make sure positive changes are really happening. A spokesman for the group also tells WND the director of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs Health Care System – which made headlines when 40 veterans died while reportedly waiting for appointments – is still on the federal payroll with an annual salary of $170,000. Over the weekend, Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman...

PHOENIX — On her 71st workday in the basement, Paula Pedene had something fun to look forward to. She had an errand to run, up on the first floor. “Today, I get to go get the papers. Exciting!” she said. “I get to go upstairs and, you know, see people.” The task itself was no thrill: Retrieve the morning’s newspapers and bring them back to the library of the Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital. The pleasure was in the journey. Down a long, sunlit hallway. Back again, seeing friends in the bustle of the hospital’s main floor. Then, Pedene got back...