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The Department of Veterans Affairs announced Tuesday that they’ve reduced their backlog of unfulfilled claims by 44%. In order to be considered part of the backlog, a claim has to be stuck in the processing stage of Veterans Affairs’ systems for more than 125 days. Backlogged cases are now down to around 344,000, a significant shift from the 611,000 ignored cases at the same time in 2013.

The Reduced Backlog Comes Too Late for Many Americans

Unfortunately, while the news from Veterans Affairs is undoubtedly welcome, for over 900,000 Americans, the news comes too late. As New York Daily News reported in February 2013, that’s the number of American veterans who had died up until that point while waiting for their guaranteed benefits to come through the incompetent government entity. At that time, it was estimated that unless the VA made significant changes to their methods, 53 Americans would continue dying per day, thanks almost entirely to the failings of Washington’s bureaucratic failures.

It would be unfair to characterize the body as completely useless. As the backlog reduction shows, the department has started pushing veterans’ claims through the pipes faster. In December 2013, the VA began expanding benefits to more American soldiers with a greater range of battlefield injuries, particularly those suffering from traumatic brain injury. While the Department of Veterans Affairs can be said to be moving in the right direction, some of Washington’s most influential players have run out of patience.

Out of the Frying Pan…

After Army Spc. Ivan Lopez murdered three people and wounded 16 more in a shooting in Fort Hood, Texas yesterday, John Boehner (R-OH), House Speaker, said of the issue, “We need to continue to look at [how] to find a way to keep weapons out of the hands of people who should not have them.” The first step, ostensibly, is to take a hard look at the speed of benefit delivery and the type of benefits being offered to help improve the health of America’s returning men and women in uniform.

Currently, a $1.1 billion package aimed at addressing mental health issues in the armed forces and general public is awaiting President Obama’s signature. Now, the Department of Veteran Affairs Management Accountability Act of 2014 is being brought to Capitol Hill. If passed, the bill would improve VA transparency, strip it of much of its autonomy, and make it vulnerable to oversight of hiring and firing practices from outside regulatory forces. While debate continues over the best way to bring the department in line with its duties to the American people, there is little debate that change is a necessity.

The Texas Army Post was under attack when a shooter besieged Fort Hood on Thursday. Lt. Gen. Mark A. Milley said in a press conference that a shooter had fired a volley of bullets which resulted in four deaths. He said that the shooter took off his 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol when he was approaching the buildings.

It is said that when he entered in the Hood, he got a vehicle and rushed towards other buildings and fired a big number of bullets there which resulted in 16 injuries of other people.  Later, when he was intercepted in the parking by the Military Police, he killed himself.

It is assumed that the shooter was suffering from serious mental breakdown and was on medication when he returned back from Iraq. Name of shooter has not been disclosed.  Mark A said that it was the second attack in the history of Fort Hood. In 2009, a man had besieged the fort and killed 13 people apart from injuring 32 others.

Upon hearing this news, President of United States Barack Obama Said:

They serve with valor, they serve with distinction and when they’re at their home base, they need to feel safe. We don’t yet know what happened tonight, but obviously that sense of safety has been broken once again.

The president said that our thoughts are with those people who lost their near and dear ones in this tragedy and with those who are having serious injuries.

 

Adecco, based in Switzerland, is the largest staffing agency in the world. Globally, it provides both temporary and full-time staffing services to businesses in more than 60 countries and employs more than 31,000 individuals. Last year, it generated about $27 billion and more than $5 billion came from the United States. But that does not mean they are not willing to change, and announced a plan to move its U.S. headquarters to Jacksonville earlier this month.

By moving 185 employees from Melville, NY to Jacksonville, Adecco will save about $2 million. That comes out to roughly $10,000 per employee, according to documents associated with the move and government officials.

“This is not just a new headquarters,” said Jacksonville City Council President Bill Gulliford.

“More important, it is a big deal because of the magnitude of their international presence… A global national headquarters suggests you get more points than just a movement of a domestic corporate headquarters,” he said.

Adecco has not chosen Jacksonville from a hat, so to speak, as the company already has 354 employees there. The 185 new workers from NY have average salaries of $64,000 and include both corporate and professional jobs.

Interestingly enough, Gulliford also expressed a bit of sympathy for Melville, which never seemed to get a chance to keep Adecco there.

“I felt a little sorry for a brief moment reading the comments of the people at the chamber on Long Island, ‘they didn’t ever give us a chance,’ which makes it very intriguing because that says, ‘we were going to leave regardless,'” Gulliford said.

Currently, the city and state are working on formal legislation for incentives that should help make the move easier for Adecco. David DeCamp, spokesperson for Mayor Alvin Brown, said that the incentives depend on the creation of 185 new full-time jobs in corporate leadership, professional, and support. The company is also expected to make a $3.4 million capital investment in the city.

Though Adecco is moving 185 employees, more than 200 will be “impacted.” They did not respond to email queries about what would happen to the jobs that weren’t relocated. However, about 250 jobs will remain in Long Island.

The staffing agency might be hesitant to move more than 200 people south because of the difficult logistics of doing so. Most companies provide benefits and assistance with the moving process including reimbursement for hiring moving trucks (70% of businesses) and reimbursement for packing items (72%). It is hard to predict exactly, but the costs and challenges associated with helping workers move might have influenced Adecco to cap the number at 185.

Adecco Group North America CEO Robert “Bob” Crouch has his home and an office in Jacksonville, which might have prompted the move. Early indicators are that both he and the city are excited about the company’s future there.

Dental care is often prohibitively expensive, especially for people living at or near the poverty line. San Francisco’s free health clinic that ran this weekend sought to help connect 300 people from around the city with basic dental care and cavity prevention help.

The free health fair was operated by the Adventist Medical Evangelism Network, a 10-year-old organization that managed to bring together over two dozen dentists, doctors, dental hygienists, nurses and dental students to take care of the walk-in patients. Danny Kwon, executive director for the network’s local branch, explains that after doing several mission trips abroad, the group realized that “there was just as big a need in America” for the type of free services they’re keen to provide.

Although the event did have a prayer table available for discussion, prayer or information, the event was open to individuals of all religious denominations. The Seventh-day Adventists see healthcare as an essential part of their core mission. “We believe we’re accountable for what we put in our bodies, because it has a profound effect on how we think, feel and treat other people,” explains Dr. Steve Mulder, an anesthesiologist from San Luis Obispo.

Dental patients who attended the clinic had their x-rays taken and were given advice as to how to relieve their mouth pain. Many of the patients, noted Kwon, were long overdue for care, needing everything from cleaning to root canals. In order to treat the greatest number of patients, the dentists treated only the dental problem most in need of care, even if multiple fillings or treatments were needed. There were so many patients visiting the clinic that, in spite of being open from 7:30am to 5pm each day, anyone arriving after 10am had to be turned away in order to ensure that everyone who had checked in would definitely receive treatment.

One patient at the clinic included 34-year-old Leticia Brown, who had put dental and medical care for her kids first, and is now paying the price with her own teeth — for several weeks, she had only been able to eat soft food because the nerve pain in one of her molars was so intense. “I went to a dentist two months ago and had two molars removed, but I think they cracked a third, and it needs to come out,” she said. Many patients were also children, who can suffer long term effects when dental care is delayed. Braces are often prescribed to young children because misaligned teeth can contribute to worn-down enamel, poor nutrition, and issues with speech development.

Volunteers included Dr. Jeri Shepherd, who is a dentist at the San Luis Obispo state prison. Dr. Shepherd said the patients weren’t the only ones getting something out of the experience. “If I can put a smile on their face and get them out of pain, that’s wonderful,” he said.

The health officials of California said that the outbreak of measles in orange county is the worst than they ever saw in the last two decades.

CBS Los Angeles reported that 21 residents of county have been diagnosed with measles and 7 of them were hospitalized due to serious health condition.  Eric Handle Health Deputy Agency Director of O.C said that “this disease is very contagious and we are trying our best to prevent it to fullest extent”.

On the other hand, health experts hold the opinion that “measles is epidemic diseases and its infections begin with cough, cold, fever, runny nose and pink eyes”.  They say that if proper initiative would not be taken to prevent the disease, it would affect the whole region within very short time.

To prevent the spread of this disease, health experts have installed remote clinics for proper MMR vaccination and asked everyone to get them vaccinated for stopping the spread of measles.

Apart from this, the outbreak of measles have also been reported in New York and San Francisco which also very alarming for the health officials.

Last but not the least, the root cause of this outbreak has not been determined but most of the doctors say that those people who come from different countries – where measles patients are not vaccinated and is common – might have brought this disease along with themselves.