Todays news from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.): Veterans in War of Words with Burr: Leery that veterans may be pushed into an inferior private health care system, veterans groups engaged in a brutal war of words over the Memorial Day weekend with Sen. Richard Burr, the ranking Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs’ Committee. Relations between veterans and Senate Republicans have been strained since Republicans blocked a vote on broad veterans legislation by Sen. Bernard Sanders, the committee chairman, that would have bolstered health and dental care, authorized 27 new clinics and improved veterans education programs, The New York Times reported. VA Health Care: Sen. Sanders will introduce legislation after the Memorial Day break that will improve accountability at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to an Associated Press report published on Tuesday in The (Nashua, New Hampshire) Telegraph and the Times Argus. In many cases under current law, such officials can only be dismissed for misconduct. But Sanders said that unlike the House version passed on Wednesday, his bill would keep some due-process protections for VA managers and would prohibit politically motivated firings, Reuters reported on Tuesday. VA Health Care: First it was Social Security, then Medicare and Medicaid, then the public health care option under Obamacare. Now, Republicans are calling for the privatization of the Veterans Health Administration, which provides cost-effective and high quality care to 6.2 million veterans. It is of course unacceptable if patients suffered as a result of any delays. And as Sen. Sanders said, Its imperative that we uncover the problems that exist and address them boldly. But regardless of what went wrong at any VA facility, turning veterans over to private sector insurers and for-profit hospitals is not the solution, Suzanne Gordon wrote in a column for The Boston Globe. Memorial Day: Sen. Sanders will introduce legislation to address performance problems in the Department of Veterans Affairs after the Senate’s Memorial Day recess. We want to make sure that the administrators are accountable, Sanders told reporters after the Memorial Day parade in Vergennes, Vermont, in which he marched. We want to make sure that nobody is fudging the books or running two sets of books in terms of access to VA health care,” he told WPTZ-TV, WVNY-TV, WFFF-TV and New England Cable News. Continue reading here: sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/newswatch/052714
Posted on: Tue, 27 May 2014 12:24:39 +0000