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The VA may be forced to pay billions in veterans' ER bills after court ruling
Editor's Note: This article by Patricia Kime originally appeared on Military.com, a leading source of news for the military and veteran community.
A federal court has ruled that the Department of Veterans Affairs wrongly denied reimbursements to veterans who received emergency medical care at non-VA facilities, a decision that could result in payouts to veterans totaling billions.
Dying of cancer, this Green Beret has one last mission: Getting Congress to fight for military medical malpractice reform
"You think you're limited on time? You ought to talk to me about limited time."
Sgt. 1st Class Richard Stayskal is dying.
The 38-year-old Green Beret's cancer was missed by Army care providers in 2017, and is now terminal. For the last year he's been fighting to change a decades-old legal rule known as the Feres Doctrine, which bars Stayskal and his family from suing the government for the alleged medical malpractice.
That's why, on Sept. 9 and 10, instead of being home in Pinehurst, North Carolina, with his wife and two daughters, Stayskal was in Washington, D.C. trying to drum up support for his namesake legislation, the SFC Richard Stayskal Military Medical Accountability Act, which would allow service members to sue the government for certain medical malpractice incidents.
Over two days, Stayskal and his attorney, Natalie Khawam, visited the offices of eight senators — Jack Reed (D-R.I.), Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.), John Neely Kennedy (R-La.), Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
They had face time with none of them.
A Montana judge hit 2 offenders with a deeply fitting punishment for stolen valor
Talk about a punishment that fits the crime: a pair of Montana men who lied about serving in military to get their cases to a state veterans court ended up getting an extra lesson in respect for the U.S. armed forces.
These NJ police officers were harassed by their bosses over their military service. They sued the department and won
Bloomfield, New Jersey police officers won $1 million in damages after a jury found they were discriminated against by department officials for nearly a decade because they served in the military.
Drug rehab counselor charged with murder in Navy man’s fentanyl overdose death
VISTA, Calif. — Two years after a Navy man died from an overdose said to be linked to fentanyl-laced pills, local authorities have charged a drug rehab specialist with murder, accusing her of being a supplier in a chain that put the potent drug in the sailor's hands.
Supreme Court rules that Maryland 'Peace Cross' honoring WWI military dead may remain standing
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A 40-foot-tall (12 meters) cross-shaped war memorial standing on public land in Maryland does not constitute government endorsement of religion, the Supreme Court ruled on Thursday in a decision that leaves unanswered questions about the boundaries of the U.S. Constitution's separation of church and state.
The justices were divided on many of the legal issues but the vote was 7-2 to overturn a lower court ruling that had declared the so-called Peace Cross in Bladensburg unconstitutional in a legal challenge mounted by the American Humanist Association, a group that advocates for secular governance. The concrete cross was erected in 1925 as a memorial to troops killed in World War One.
The ruling made it clear that a long-standing monument in the shape of a Christian cross on public land was permissible but the justices were divided over whether other types of religious displays and symbols on government property would be allowed. Those issues are likely to come before the court in future cases.
