House Votes to Ban Bonuses for All VA Employees Through 2016 – Plus the 7 Gov Stories

On GovLoop Insights’ DorobekINSIDER:

• Space: the final frontier. When you look into the night sky, up at the stars, you can’t help but dream of exploration. A trip to the moon. A map of the constellations. A ride on a solar flare. But in 2011, NASA changed the space game: they terminated the space shuttle program. But that didn’t mean they wanted to give up exploration — they just needed to do it differently and cheaper.

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The SEVEN stories that impact your life:

1. GovExec: House Votes to Ban Bonuses for All VA Employees Through 2016- “The House on Tuesday unanimously approved a measure that would ban bonuses for all Veterans Affairs Department employees for the next three years.”

2. FCW: HealthCare.gov moves to Amazon- “Big changes are in store for HeathCare.gov when the next open enrollment period begins in November, according to two articles that offer inside looks into the coding and infrastructure work on the site.”

3. The Atlantic: Eric Cantor’s Loss: A Stunning Upset- “No one thought Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, could actually lose. His primary challenge in his suburban Richmond district, from a local economics professor named David Brat, was thought to be nominal. No sitting majority leader has lost a primary since the position was invented in 1899. Cantor, though unloved by many in his party and in Congress, was seen as the speaker-in-waiting whenever John Boehner decided, or was forced, to hang it up.”

4. Federal News Radio: Congress moving to ensure speedier care for vets- “ United in response to a national uproar, Congress is suddenly moving quickly to address military veterans’ long waits for care at VA hospitals.The House unanimously approved legislation Tuesday to make it easier for patients enduring lengthy delays for initial visits to get VA-paid treatment from local doctors instead. The Senate was poised to vote on a similar bill within 48 hours, said Democratic leader Harry Reid.”

5. NextGov: IBM Partners with Epic in Battle for Pentagon’s Multibillion-Dollar Deal- “IBM has teamed with electronic health records provider Epic to compete for the Defense Department’s Healthcare Management Systems Modernization contract expected to be bid out this summer, with an expected value of approximately $11 billion. “

6. FCW: TSA says incoming PreCheck data might contain errors- “The Transportation Security Administration is advising the growing number of participants in its expedited screening program that they might need to check with third-party booking agents and airlines to ensure that their personal data is correct.”

7. NextGov: Facebook Verifies Federal Accounts, Distinguishing them from Copies and Fakes- “A little blue check mark can be a very big deal for citizens scanning popular social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in search of information from legitimate federal accounts.”

DorobekINSIDER water-cooler fodder… yes, we’re trying to help you make your water-cooler time better too…

• The Tools We Need to Measure Quality in Government Auditable standards for public-sector quality improvement efforts are the key to their sustained and effective implementation

• http://www.codeforamerica.org/blog/2014/06/09/lets-respectfully-redesign-government/

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