Free Republic

A group of Republicans are looking to ban President Joe Biden’s administration from siphoning healthcare resources from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) away from military veterans to illegal aliens arriving at the United States-Mexico border. The legislation, first reported by Fox News Digital’s Jamie Joseph and Adam Shaw, comes as Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been accused of siphoning VA healthcare resources from military veterans to illegal aliens. Last year, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas seemingly confirmed to Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) that the agency was looking at using VA healthcare resources at the border.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is preparing to shift billions of dollars from government-run veterans’ hospitals to private health care providers, setting the stage for the biggest transformation of the veterans’ medical system in a generation. Under proposed guidelines, it would be easier for veterans to receive care in privately run hospitals and have the government pay for it. Veterans would also be allowed access to a system of proposed walk-in clinics, which would serve as a bridge between V.A. emergency rooms and private providers, and would require co-pays for treatment. Veterans’ hospitals, which treat seven million patients annually, have...

One week after promising to keep Congress and the public “fully and currently” informed, the Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) rewrote a report to remove evidence that a senior VA executive tried to steer a massive government contract to her husband’s employer. Laura Eskenazi, then-vice chairman of the Board of Veterans Appeals (BVA), “misused her public office” by plotting with her husband Jonathan to develop a plan that could lead to a major financial “opportunity” for CACI, a government contractor that employed him. Eskenazi then sought to cover it up with “dubious” claims, according to...

Twelve of 15 commissioners appointed by Congress and the president to propose reforms to veterans’ healthcare have endorsed 18 “bold” steps to transform the system, but in the end rejected a push to dismantle it and to shift most veterans’ care into the private sector. And yet, say critics of the Commission on Care including several veteran organizations, its final report released Tuesday still proposes to expand veterans’ rights to choose outside healthcare providers, enough to put traditional VA healthcare at significant risk over time. The dangers, opponents contend, is that a steady shift of patients from VA to the...

President Barack Obama is opposing suggestions the government privatize the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve health care veterans receive. In an interview with the Colorado Springs Gazette, the president said his administration has made progress modernizing the VA and providing veterans with more timely health care following criticism over wait times. Privatizing the agency would delay that progress, he said. The administration came under fire when it was disclosed that secret wait lists were uncovered at a VA health care system in Arizona amid reports that several veterans had died waiting for health care. Government investigations found significant system...

In the battle between bureaucrats and veterans, the Obama administration stands with the bureaucrats. Last week the White House threatened to veto the VA Accountability Act, a bill that would moderately streamline the process for firing incompetent Department of Veterans Affairs employees. Under the terms of the act, the VA secretary can’t place employees on paid administrative leave for more than 14 days per year, employees’ initial-hire probationary period is extended to 18 months, and terminated employees have seven days to file an appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board. But these streamlined termination provisions — which still provide far...

According to a leaked internal document from the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly one-third of veterans awaiting healthcare coverage at the VA have already died. The April 2015 report, leaked to the Huffington Post by VA whistleblower Scott Davis, indicates that 238,657 of the 847,882 veterans waiting to be enrolled in VA healthcare are already dead, suggesting that over 28 percent of veterans applying for health coverage perished while waiting for it. VA spokeswoman Walinda West played down the number, insisting that some of those listed as having “pending” status may well have not completed their applications for healthcare coverage...

I'm a 62 year old Vietnam vet, no hero, just proud to have served my country and it was a great entrance into manhood. I am in the process of entering the VA healthcare system here in Oregon. No current health issues, but I'm registering since I recently was laid off and have no health insurance. I would appreciate Vet input on their experience with the healthcare they receive from the VA system in general and if anyone has had an experience with the Eugene, Oregon facility.

<p>Via Breitbart, who better to fix the government’s most notorious bureaucracy than the man who ran for president as an expert turnaround artist? Just one problem: Not in a million years, I’d bet, would Romney accept a task as thanklessly Sisyphean as managing the VA. No one — no one — is going to turn the agency around and he surely knows it. So does Obama, I expect, which is why he’d happily offer a Republican like Romney the job if he thought he’d take it. It would make the next two years of VA failures thoroughly bipartisan, with zero risk that the new manager would embarrass O by succeeding where his Democratic administration had failed.</p>

U.S. veterans are dying because of delays in diagnosis and treatment at VA hospitals. At least 19 veterans have died because of delays in simple medical screenings like colonoscopies or endoscopies, at various VA hospitals or clinics, CNN has learned. The new document obtained by CNN shows a worse problem than has previously been made public by the VA. As CNN has previously reported, as many as 7,000 veterans were on a backlog list -- waiting too long for colonscopies or endoscopies -- at VA facilities in Columbia, South Carolina and Augusta, Georgia.

Dr. Robert A. PEARLMAN wrote the book. He works for the VA and is well known as a supporter of Physician Assisted Suicide. Pearlman's book for the VA specifically refers Veterans to an organization fronting for the HEMLOCK SOCIETY, which promotes suicide. Pearlman's writing is cited in the literature prominently along with another supporter of Physician Assisted Suicide: Ezekial Emmanuel, brother of Obama's chief of staff RAHM EMMANUEL. Pearlman also touts his role as a "Faculty Scholar" in the "Project on Death in America." This project is funded by GEORGE SOROS. Yes, THAT George Soros. And yes, the real...

Senators send letters to the White House every day. But not letters that portend what may be one of the biggest fights on Capital Hill in the coming year. Three Democratic Senators have politely, but bluntly, blasted the Bush Administration's funding of the VA. More importantly, they have drawn the battle lines that may decide the future of veteran's healthcare and other benefits for years to come. In the letter, dated December 16, 2004, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, Committee on Veterans Affairs Ranking Member Daniel Akaka, and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Subcommittee Ranking Member Barbara Mikulski urged President Bush to...