Senate passes ‘compromise’ bill that green lights 26 new VA hospitals, clinics

The U.S. Senate reached a compromise deal combining elements of two competing Veterans Administration reform bills that would, among other things, gives the go-ahead for the construction of 26 new VA hospitals and clinics.

The bill also allows veterans to receive care from a private provider, paid for by the VA, if their local VA facility cannot get them an appointment within the department's wait-time goals or if they live more than 40 miles from a VA facility. Each facility would be required to make public its wait-time goals and current wait times.

The VA has admitted that several dozen veterans have died while awaiting care at its Phoenix hospital, and its inspector general has claimed that hundreds of others veterans seeking treatment risked being “lost or forgotten” due to dysfunction at the facility.

According to figures released by the VA, nearly 60,000 veterans have waited more than 90 days without receiving their first care appointment at a VA facility, and more than 60,000 more having enrolled in the system over the past decade and been denied appointments.

(http://www.law360.com/articles/547170/senate-overwhelmingly-passes-va-health-care-reform-bill)

New York City has two very large buildings dedicated to answering the 911 calls of its five boroughs. With more than 11 million emergency calls annually, it makes perfect sense. The second of these buildings, the Public Safety Answering Center II (PSAC II) is located on a nine-acre parcel of land in the Bronx. It’s an imposing 450,000 square-foot structure—a 240-foot-wide by 240-foot-tall cube. The gleaming aluminum cube risesthe equivalent of 24 stories from behind a grassy berm, projecting the unlikely impression that it might actually be floating. Like most visually striking structures, the building has drawn as much scorn as it has admiration.