News & Opinion

Contractors building a new veterans hospital in Orlando told a congressional panel Tuesday that the complex — already months behind schedule — will be delayed longer and could cost more than $100 million extra to finish. Read more »

When the Veterans Affairs Department broke ground on a $717 million, 1-million-square-foot hospital in Orlando, Fla., in October 2008, it expected to be finished by October 2012. Read more »

U.S. House lawmakers reviewing the construction of major veterans hospitals got a positive report on Tuesday from the company that built the new VA medical center in North Las Vegas. Read more »

The Department of Veterans Affairs says it’s trying to recover millions of dollars from prosthetic limb manufacturers that have been overcharging for the artificial arms and legs used by veterans. Read more »

Last year, Social Security announced it’s Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) on Oct. 19 but Congress didn’t agree to legislation authorizing a similar increase for VA recipients until Nov. 2. On March 5, Representative Jon Runyan of New Jersey introduced H.R.4142, the American Heroes COLA Act to make VA’s cost-of-living adjustments automatic like Social Security and military retired pay. This bill has been referred to the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and its passage would eliminate the period of uncertainty between the announcement of the Social Security COLA and action by Congress to raise VA’s rates. Read more »

They say the devil is in the details. For those mired in Orlando's stalled VA Hospital construction project, thousands of details still need to be hammered out. And the clock is ticking. One of those devilish details — an unassuming 6-inch steel stud — is but one example of what has put the long-awaited medical facility more than 15 months behind schedule. Read more »

-- Not to long ago, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL), Chair of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, wrote an editorial for Military.com’s ‘The Passdown‘ in which he explained his concern that the reality of sequestration – the congressionally mandated cuts that will automatically occur later this year due to the Joint Select Committee’s failure to find $1.2 trillion dollars in deficit reductions – is about hit home for veterans. Read more »

Programs aimed at helping Iraq and Afghanistan veterans find jobs may be paying off, as the federal government reported a dramatic drop in the February unemployment rate for people who separated from the service since 2001. Read more »

Recently, the White House honored 200 of the 1.2 million Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with a special meal and high words of praise. In a moving speech, President Obama spoke of sacrifice and struggle, reminding his audience that new veterans would not be abandoned like the Vietnam generation. “That's a mistake that we must never repeat,” he stated. Meanwhile, a series of policy actions contradict these statements, exposing government intentions to unnecessarily sacrifice the military community at the altar of budget cuts. Read more »

Officials at Arlington National Cemetery will use an Army-designed geospatial mapping system to manage cemetery operations, the executive director of the Army National Cemeteries Program said today. Read more »