“Such a waiver would foster a culture of corruption in the VA,” said Melissa Bryant, political director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Benefits
The VA is working to reduce the wait time for disability benefits, which at its peak averaged 280 days. The president vowed to end the wait in 2014.
Posted inAccountability, Benefits, Returning Home to Battle, The Trump Era
5th senator slams blanket ethics waiver on for-profit college payments
The move, Sen. Tom Carper writes, represents “a drastic departure from the intent of Congress and weakens important ethics standards.”
Posted inBenefits, Health Care for Veterans, Returning Home to Battle, The Trump Era
Is Donald Trump letting veterans down?
While veterans supported Trump, the president has yet to nominate anyone to fill key leadership positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Posted inBenefits, Education, Returning Home to Battle, U.S. Education
Pentagon ends ban on University of Phoenix, but scrutiny continues
The Pentagon has taken the University of Phoenix off probation, three months after suspending the for-profit school from its military financial aid program and from recruiting on military bases.
Posted inBenefits, Education, Returning Home to Battle
Bill would limit for-profit colleges’ access to federal funds
Using Veterans Day as a backdrop, the Obama administration announced its support for a bill that seeks to rein in for-profit schools that prey on veterans and military personnel eligible for the GI Bill and military tuition assistance programs.
Posted inBenefits, Health Care for Veterans, Opiates, Returning Home to Battle
Federal report confirms veteran’s overdose death at Tomah VA hospital
Federal investigators have confirmed that a lethal cocktail of prescription drugs killed Marine Corps veteran Jason Simcakoski, a psychiatric patient at the Tomah, Wisconsin, veterans hospital known as “Candy Land” for its rampant use of opiates.
Posted inBenefits, Returning Home to Battle
VA struggling with promise to end long benefits waits this year
The Department of Veterans Affairs has reduced its chronic backlog of veterans’ disability claims, but so far, the agency is struggling to meet its self-imposed deadline of eliminating long wait times by 2015.
Posted inBenefits, Education, Returning Home to Battle
Senators seek investigation of GI Bill funds at unaccredited schools
Eight U.S. senators are demanding that the Department of Veterans Affairs launch an inquiry into revelations that GI Bill tuition subsidies have flowed to questionable unaccredited schools.
Posted inBenefits, Returning Home to Battle
Senator seeks inquiry into University of Phoenix military recruitment
U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin has asked the Pentagon to suspend taxpayer-supported tuition payments to the University of Phoenix and ban the for-profit college from military bases until an investigation into potential violations of federal law takes place.
Posted inBenefits, Impact, Returning Home to Battle
CIR’s VA backlog investigation got the president to change his tone
In the wake of CIR’s investigative series into the long wait times veterans faced when submitting disability claims to the VA, there was real, substantive change.