{"id":54417,"date":"2014-08-07T15:01:26","date_gmt":"2014-08-07T19:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=54417"},"modified":"2014-08-07T15:56:06","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T19:56:06","slug":"landmark-va-bill-signed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=54417","title":{"rendered":"“Landmark” VA bill signed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"VA<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

The President signed what is being called a “landmark” bill to overhaul the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, according to Stars & Stripes<\/a>;<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will not and cannot be the end of our effort,\u201d Obama said. \u201cImplementing this bill will take time. It will take focus from all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

The massive reform package has been a rare instance of bipartisanship in Washington and won overwhelming support in both chambers of Congress in late July, just three months after delays in veteran health care exploded into a national scandal. It dramatically expands veteran access to private care, adds medical staff and facilities, and streamlines the firing of VA executives found to be incompetent or guilty of manipulating patient data.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a good deal,\u201d Obama said. \u201cThis bill covers a lot of ground.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Everything this President does is somehow “landmark” and I’m not sure why they signed it at Fort Belvoir, an Army base which has nothing to do with the VA. Of course, it’s really not going to change much about the way the VA is run. From another S&S link<\/a>;<\/p>\n

The bill includes a compromise by House and Senate lawmakers allowing the Department of Veterans Affairs to continue handing out up to $360 million in employee performance awards each year as it attempts to overhaul its health care system and ease chronically long patient wait times.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, basically, the bill rewards VA employees by pushing their workload off on civilian hospitals and continuing their bonuses. <\/p>\n

Pete Hegseth, CEO of Concerned Veterans for America<\/a>, issued the following statement in reaction:<\/p>\n

\u201cToday is a victory for veterans. The VA reform bill President Obama signed into law today brings the first major civil service reform since the 1980\u2019s. But while the key provisions in this legislation that hold VA executives accoundailytable and grant veterans\u2019 choice for private sector care are long overdue, they are only the first step. CVA fought long and hard for these reforms, and it\u2019s important to remember that this historic legislative compromise happened in spite of this administration\u2019s efforts rather than because of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact is that there was little appetite from those on the stage today for the reforms that are the core of this legislation. It is telling that rather than pausing for victory laps, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller\u2014who deserves the lion\u2019s share of the credit for his leadership on this legislation\u2014and CVA, were in the field today making sure that the calcified bureaucracy at the center of this scandal as well as the politicians who failed to prevent it, are held to account. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe President has no more room to shirk responsibilities or shift blame. How effective these reforms will be now rests squarely on the shoulders of this administration. CVA will be keeping a close eye on how these reforms are implemented and enforced to ensure that Congress\u2019 intent is met and that President Obama and VA Secretary McDonald use these significant tools of reform so that the betrayal we have seen is never repeated.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The President signed what is being called a “landmark” bill to overhaul the Department of Veterans’ … “Landmark” VA bill signed<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":41955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-veterans-affairs-department"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/41955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}