Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

1.      VA Eyes Handhelds To Track Homeless Vets.  In his “What’s Brewin'” blog for NextGov (12/14), Bob Brewin writes, “The Veterans Affairs Department would like to acquire handheld computers to help track the fluid population of homeless vets, as part of a project supported” by VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to “house all veterans now living on the street in five years.” The agency “said it is looking for keyboard equipped handheld PCs that can digitally capture veterans’ ID information as well as pictures and voice recordings, and then transmit this information to a central database.” Brewin cautions, however, that VA “may face real problems when its case workers start taking videos of homeless vets, who though they lack shelter, still have some pride and a sense of privacy.”

 2.      Wis. Board Nixes Vets Secretary Search.  The AP (12/14) reports, “The state Department of Veterans Affairs board has held off on launching a national search for a new agency secretary.” Although “the board was scheduled to vote Friday on launching the search,” it “voted 4-1 to withdraw the item from the agenda.” The panel withdrew the vote “because it’s unclear what may happen to the secretary or the structure of that office when Republican Gov.-elect Scott Walker takes over next month.”

 3.      With Repeal’s Fate Uncertain, New Suit Challenges ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’  The Washington Post (12/14, O’Keefe, 605K) reports, “Three former service members discharged under the military’s ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy filed suit in federal court on Monday, asking for reinstatement and arguing that the ban on gays serving openly is unconstitutional.” The suit, filed in San Francisco, “is the first of several that are expected if efforts to repeal the law fail in Congress during the lame-duck session.” At least 62 publications run a similar AP (12/14, Leff) story.

4.      VA Cites GI Bill Progress, But Asks To Delay More Changes.  The Army Times (12/20, Maze, 104K) says that while the Veterans Affairs Department “seems to have made dramatic progress in processing and paying Post-9/11 GI Bill claims, with a fully automated claims system just around the corner,” department officials are “pleading with Congress to delay any significant changes to the program.” According to the Times, VA is “asking Congress to refrain from making significant changes in the benefit for two to three years in order to avoid renewed problems.”
     Senate Unanimously Approves Expansion Of Post-9/11 GI Bill. CQ (12/14, Lesniewski), however, notes that on Monday, the Senate “passed an amended bill that would make changes to education benefits for veterans who served after Sept. 11, 2001, including setting the amount of financial aid for individuals enrolled at a public university or college to meet in-state tuition and fees. The measure (S 3447), sponsored” by US Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), the Veterans Affairs Committee chairman, “would expand the post-Sept. 11 GI Bill (PL 110-252) to include tuition reimbursements for vocational and trade schools.” Before “passing the measure by unanimous consent Monday, the Senate agreed to an Akaka manager’s amendment that would require that certain benefits not be paid out before Oct. 1, 2011 – the beginning of fiscal 2012.”

 5.      Cyberbattle. Modern Healthcare (12/13, Rhea, 72K) reports, “Officials at the Veterans Health Administration have been placing certain electronic devices behind a sophisticated web of protection in an effort to fight off a growing number of cyber-attacks.” The devices are “intended to prevent potentially life-threatening compromises to a host of clinical information and patient-care devices.”

 6.      Va. Health Info Exchange Links To Veterans EHR. Modern Healthcare (12/13, Conn, 72K) reports, “MedVirginia, a Richmond, Va.-based health information exchange, is now linked to the virtual lifetime electronic record, a collaboration between the healthcare systems of the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments and civilian healthcare systems.” The link “allows physicians at VA and military facilities to query MedVirginia’s clinical data repository.” It also permits “civilian physicians [to] look for information about their patients from military and VA facilities.”

 7.      Queens Court For Veterans Aims To Help, Not Punish.  The New York Times (12/14, A28, Eligon, 1.01M) reports, “New York City’s second criminal court program tailored to military veterans opened in Queens on Monday, expanding the state’s efforts to provide treatment” for veterans “who may be struggling” with mental health or substance abuse problems. The Times adds, “The federal government has given more than half a million dollars to courts in Brooklyn, Queens and Nassau County to hire screeners to determine suitable candidates for veterans’ courts…said” the judge “who will lead the Queens court.”

8.      Congress And The Court. In an editorial, the New York Times (12/14, 1.01M) says that because a veteran of the Korean War named David Henderson had been “diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia,” he “should have been given leeway” by the Department of Veterans Affairs for filing a claim for in-home care “15 days after the statutory 120-day period for his appeal had ended.” The Times, which says this is “not a reasonable deadline,” argues that the Supreme Court “can and must conclude that the law and precedent allow veterans like Mr. Henderson leeway. Otherwise, the neediest, most challenged veterans would be the least likely to obtain essential benefits, which is certainly not the purpose of the law, nor the nation.”

 9.      Study Finds “Hidden Epidemic” Of Female Vet Suicides. The digital edition of the Army Times (12/20, Kennedy, 104K) reports, “Female veterans commit suicide at a rate three times higher than women who never served, according to a new study. ‘These findings suggest a hidden epidemic of suicide among young women with military service,'” researchers “wrote in their study,” which they described as the first general-population analysis of suicide risk among female veterans.

10.    Eyeing Death Rates Of Vietnam War Veterans. According to Newsday (12/13, Evans, 339K), an “increasingly vocal number of Vietnam veterans or their loved ones…are questioning whether participation in the Vietnam War is hastening the deaths of soldiers who survived it.” Still, John Rowan, president of Vietnam Veterans of America, who “said his organization had been frustrated that the Department of Veterans Affairs has not done current research on the death rates of Vietnam” vets, “said he sees change coming.” After noting that in “September, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, said his department has begun a study of the health impacts of the war, which he said would be complete in about three years,” Newsday added, “Many veterans note with alarm that…VA this year again expanded the list of more than a dozen diseases — including a host of cancers, Type 2 diabetes, and ischemic heart disease — directly linked to exposure to Agent Orange and other herbicides.”
     Akaka Seeking Expansion Of Agent Orange Benefits For Vets’ Children. The digital edition of the Army Times (12/20, 104K) says US Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI), chairman of the Senate veterans Affairs Committee, “wants to expand benefits eligibility for spina bifida victims who are children of veterans exposed to…Agent Orange,” a herbicide that was “widely used in Vietnam.” While current law “covers children of veterans who were in Vietnam or near the Demilitarized Zone in Korea during the Vietnam War,” Akaka “introduced a bill, S 3953, that would add veterans who worked on Air Force bases in Thailand during the Vietnam War because Agent Orange was handled at those installations.”