Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs Jeff Miller led the push to create the Veterans Choice program, and cooperated with his ideological opposite, Sen. Bernie Sanders, to get it passed. The Florida Republican has been among the VA's leading critics, especially for what...
Along the winding drive through the 300-acre compound of Long Island’s only veterans’ medical center, banners line the road stating the presumed values of the institution: integrity, commitment, advocacy, respect and excellence. But in recent months, a series of troubling failings and allegations of wrongdoing have...
A 76-year-old veteran committed suicide on Sunday in the parking lot of the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island, where he had been a patient, according to the Suffolk County Police Department. Peter A. Kaisen, of Islip, was pronounced dead after he shot himself...
When clinical psychiatrist Cher Morrow-Bradley and other health care providers call the Veterans Choice program, they are greeted with a recorded, 90-second "thank you" from Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald. It's not having the intended effect. "Why don't you make this easier? The process is so cumbersome,...
Usually, there are 10 operations a week scheduled at the Northport Veterans Affairs Medical Center on Long Island. But since mid-February, the hospital’s five operating rooms have stood empty and unused, shut down after sand-size black particles began falling from air ducts. The ducts are part...
The former chairwoman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee wants to overhaul the VA Choice program — the initiative that lets veterans see private physicians if they can’t get an appointment at a VA medical center. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said veterans in her state continue to wait weeks...
As accusations of mismanagement, falsified records and preventable patient deaths rock the Veterans Affairs healthcare system, some who are familiar with the VA say the failures are consistent with a pattern of well-documented problems. For more than a decade, the department's inspector general and the Government...
“Wednesday's OIG report reinforces what Concerned Veterans for America has been saying for years — the VHA is desperately in need of reform. Measures such as the VA Accountability Act, along with the proposals included in CVA’s bipartisan “Fixing Veterans Health Care” report, are a...
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. That's according to an internal document from...
On Sept. 11, 2001, Desma Brooks was a single mother in her mid-20s who served part-time in the Indiana Army National Guard. Watching the attack on TV, she wondered if she might be called up. She had three kids, so maybe she would be assigned...