Veterans may soon have easier access to government-paid health care under a bill President Barack Obama signed into law Thursday, the government’s most sweeping response to date to a public uproar over systemwide problems that have rocked the Veterans Affairs Department.

With service members, lawmakers and military leaders looking on, Obama put his pen to the bill at Fort Belvoir, an Army base south of Washington, where he held up the legislation as a rare example of Republicans and Democrats working together effectively. Denouncing delays in care for veterans as wrong and outrageous, Obama said the government would keep moving ahead with urgent reforms to ensure veterans have the care they’ve earned.

“This will not and cannot be the end of our effort,” Obama said. “We have to make sure the VA system can keep pace with the new demands.”

The $16.3 billion measure allows the Veterans Affairs Department to hire thousands of doctors, nurses and other health professionals at the VA’s nearly 1,000 hospitals and outpatient clinics nationwide. Under the new law, employment rules will be revised to make it easier to fire senior VA executives judged to be negligent or performing poorly.

Obama Veterans Health_AP_660.jpg

For more information see the following website; http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/07/obama-to-sign-veterans-health-care-overhaul/

Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Leave a reply