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Gov. Bob McDonnell today announced that Virginia has been approved to implement a new healthcare initiative, the Medicare-Medicaid Enrollee (dual eligible) Financial Alignment Demonstration, aimed at coordinating care for more than 78,000 Virginians currently enrolled in Medicare and Medicaid.
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U.S. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-VA) and Rob Portman (R-OH) today introduced bipartisan legislation to improve and expand federal fiscal accountability. The legislation requires standardized reporting of federal spending to be posted to a single website, allowing citizens to track spending in their communities and agencies to more easily identify improper payments, waste and fraud.
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U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine today applauded the confirmation of Marilyn Tavenner of Virginia as the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) by a vote of 91 to 7. Tavenner is the first Senate-confirmed CMS Administrator since 2006. CMS oversees Medicare and Medicaid and is charged with health care services for millions of Americans.
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U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) visited Slaughter Pen battlefield today to announce his second bill, the American Battlefield Protection Program Amendments Act. The bipartisan bill introduced by Kaine and Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) during the sesquicentennial of the Civil War will preserve historical battlegrounds by reauthorizing the Civil War Battlefield Preservation Program (CWBPP) that provides competitive federal grants to match private and non-profit donations.
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We represent thousands of African American, Hispanic and Native American farmers in the United States and we recognize the importance of as many of our farmers being counted in the agriculture census. It’s with information from the census that the nation learns about the importance of the work we do. This is why we are appealing to everyone who as not yet sent in their census form to please do so. There is still time.
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Many people may not realize that what happened on April 17, 2013 in the town of West, Texas—a fertilizer plant with an unreported large stockpile of explosive ammonium nitrate blew up, killing 14 and rendering hundreds of others injured and homeless—could happen almost anywhere.
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U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine made stops in the Shenandoah Valley today including a roundtable with women business leaders at James Madison University in Harrisonburg and a downtown tour of Waynesboro to learn more about growing the economy in the region.
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U.S. Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Tim Kaine (D-VA) today sent a letter to President Obama urging him to take action to reduce the current backlog of veterans’ disability claims. Currently, the average claim takes over 300 days to be resolved. In the letter, Sens. Warner and Kaine, who were joined by 65 other members of the Senate, cited long delays in cities across the country in making the case for swift action to reduce the backlog.
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The so-called Monsanto Protection Act is actually a provision (officially known as Section 735) within a recently passed Congressional spending bill, H.R. 933, which exempts biotech companies from litigation in regard to the making, selling and distribution of genetically engineered (GE) seeds and plants.
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It has a long way to go before becoming law, but the introduction of a bipartisan immigration reform bill is significant for U.S. agriculture. A group of senators has unveiled a comprehensive immigration reform bill that includes provisions for a new agricultural guestworker program. American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman said that’s extremely important for the future of agriculture.
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