Veterans Turn to Congress for Adequate Budget

[amaverick]

Both Senators in Utah voted against making Veterens Benefits funding mandatory instead of discresionary in 2005. Both RED sentors.

DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS
807 Maine Ave., SW • Washington, D.C. 20024 • Phone (202) 554-3501 • Fax (202) 863-0233

NEWS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 8, 2006

Veterans Turn to Congress for Adequate Budget

The Disabled American Veterans is urging Congress to fully fund veterans health care and provide the resources needed to ensure the accuracy and timeliness of the disability compensation system.
“Once again the Bush administration’s budget plan has come up short of what’s needed to honor America’s commitment to veterans,” said DAV National Commander Paul W. Jackson. “It is up to Congress to provide the funds needed to guarantee that sick and disabled veterans have timely access to high quality medical care and the full range of benefits they have earned through their service and sacrifice.”


The President’s budget plan contains a total of $80.6 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Included in the spending blueprint is nearly $31.5 billion dollars for veterans health care. However, an estimated $2.8 billion actually would come out of veterans’ pockets, not the federal treasury. Certain veterans would be charged a $250 annual enrollment fee for VA care and see their prescription co-payments nearly double from $8 to $15. Both proposals, which the DAV and other veterans service organizations oppose, and Congress has consistently rejected, have been part of the administration’s budget request in the past.


Although the veterans budget has increased in recent years, there still is a significant gap in funding to meet the needs of sick and disabled veterans. This year the DAV is urging Congress to increase the overall VA medical care budget by 11 percent over the 2006 level, to $32.8 billion. Included in that amount is a 13 percent boost for direct medical services to sick and disabled veterans and a 10 percent increase in funding for medical and prosthetic research.


The DAV again strongly recommends replacing the current discretionary appropriations method with full mandatory funding, or some combination of discretionary and mandatory funding,” said Jackson. “This fundamental budget reform proposal will take the politics, guesswork and political gamesmanship out of VA health care.”


Other recommendations from the DAV include $1.4 billion for the Veterans Benefits Administration to hire additional staff, as well as to improve training and information technology within the Compensation and Pension Service. The DAV also calls for adding staff and program improvements within the VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment Service. “The VA needs to make a substantial investment in resources and training to overcome the persistent backlog in pending claims that have delayed and wrongly denied disability benefits to veterans and their families,” said Jackson.
As the budget and appropriations processes progresses, the DAV has called on its members to wage an all-out campaign to ensure that adequate resources are provided to meet the needs of America’s disabled veterans and their families.


“America’s disabled veterans and their families are a strong, vital political force, and we must continue to hold our elected representatives accountable for their actions regarding veterans issues,” Jackson said.
The 1.3 million-member Disabled American Veterans, a non-profit organization founded in 1920 and chartered by the U.S. Congress in 1932, represents this nation’s disabled veterans. It is dedicated to a single purpose: building better lives for our nation’s disabled veterans and their families. For more information, visit the organization’s Web site www.dav.org.

 

[fisherman66]

Is this about veterans who were disabled during service, or after as another citizen on the street? Does this include individuals who served til retirement, or all including those who were volunteered (or were drafted) and left after their term was over? How does private insurance work into this; as well as medicare and other promised benefits?

I support the tax payer picking up the life time medical bills of those men and women who were wounded during service; but is this the issue?

 

[Al Norris]

This is about American Veterans who have been disabled or injured while on active duty. This is about guys who got out of the service with service connected injuries who can't work or who can't get private insurance due to those previous injuries.

This is about the backlog of cases that get pushed from one doctor and Dept. to another. This is about paperwork and entire cases that routinely get lost. This is about underfunding and understaffing of many of our VA hospitals.

This is about young men and women who are never counseled to get everything medically done before they get out. Who after having been out for a time, become reinjured simply because the military didn't fix it right the first time.

Yes, it is also about those men and women who retired from service, who were promised that as a part of their retirement, they would get the best medical care for the rest of their lives.

Do you have a problem with our country living up to its promises to those that put their lives on the line for you and me?

 

[johnbt]

"Do you have a problem with our country living up to its promises to those that put their lives on the line for you and me?"

No, I don't have a problem with it.

OTOH, I also have many of the same questions because I don't understand all of the ins and outs of the VA system. I've worked with people with disabilities for more than 30 years and have heard it all (good, bad and mostly indifferent) from the percentage of them who have been involved with the VA (we have a VA Hospital in Richmond).

It's a much more complicated question than you make it out to be. The article says "certain vets" and I'm wondering if that's the retired lifers, the folks who were disabled while on active duty, or the guy who got injured several months into his hitch when he did something really stupid in town and got busted up something terrible when a phone pole jumped out in front of his motorcycle. Or maybe they just want to charge the substance abusers for repeat treatments. The article doesn't say.

There has been a lot written about it in the American Legion magazine and the Washington Post and it's still confusing.

I do know that the Commonwealth of Virginia promised me free health care 31 years ago and that promise didn't last very long (although it's still an excellent deal.)

My father served in WWII and he's often said that he's very thankful he has private insurance after all he's heard about the VA over the years. (And no, he doesn't understand the details of the new proposal either.)

John

 

[fisherman66]

Do you have a problem with our country living up to its promises to those that put their lives on the line for you and me?

No. Do you have a problem with those who are unaware of the problems that exist in that system asking for details?

 

[Eghad]

I am a disabled veteran. The local VA clinic where I go for treatment has some hard working folks who take good care of us. The problem is that there are not enough doctors, nurses and health care workers to allow us access to health care on a regular basis. For a service connected disability I have to wait about 6 months between visits. For health care they can not provide you have to catch the shuttle to the VA Hospital about a 100 mile trip.

The VA bills my private insurance company for treatment. So there is no free ride on the txpayers. I do get my medications for free since it is for service connected conditions.

The problem lies in the fact that there may be 50,000 injured/wounded Soldiers and more coming who have entered the sysytem from Iraq and Afghanistan. Our local VA clinic has one psychatrist. If you have PTSD you will be lucky if you get to see him twice a year. The VA Clinic has an outreach program here but did not have room enough in the building to host it. Since we are a federal installation we agreed to let them do it here. Before these veterans were meeting in the maintenance room/broom closet at the local VA.

This administration has incresed funding, it is not near enough for what is needed. This administration has also cut out veterans from healthcare at the VA by establishing eight different priority groups. They are also planning to raise co-pays for veterans on medicine.

Mr. Bush is also planning to raise the cost of Tricare for military retirees.

Mr Bush seems to think that tax cuts for oil companies that are making record profits comes before veterans healthcare.

Last year the VA had to go back to congress to beg for additional funds.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27512

The Transiton for those coming disabled from Active Duty to the VA was piss poor in 2003-2004. I hope that it has improved. It makes me sad to know that there were Reservists and National Guardsman who were sent home without the help they deserved.

 

[Al Norris]

Do you have a problem with our country living up to its promises to those that put their lives on the line for you and me?

The question was confrontational and not at all my normal style of writing. The question I posed was meant to get those reading this thread to investigate the VA on their own. There are many sources that will lead you to you own conclusions as to what the VA is about; what the Military, with the approval of Congress, has promised all veterans, especially retirees; and what the Congress has failed to consistently do since Korea.

As a veteran, wounded in combat, I am biased... Okey, I'm jaded. Even though I do not use VA services, I have many friends from my own era; those of later eras and current vets that are being treated as second class citizens at best, ignored at worst.

Like gun owners, veterans organizations are not all on the same page. This hurts any efforts to present a concerted front. Add to that the publics general ignorance of veterans issues and we have a situation that is ripe for Congressional neglect.

 

[amaverick]

Antipitas, I totally agree. I am a 100% disabled vet and this administration and congress has cut benefits for active duty military and disabled vets. They give Exxon Mobile $2.6 Billion in tax credits in a record profit year but and cannot fully fund veterans health care. I would say their priorities are a little screwed up.

I would like to add that every year the VA has a chance to discuss it's need to congress. The present congress has decided they do not want to hear from the VA anymore. So now they are trying to silence the VA's requests.

 

[marks655]

Mr. Bush is also planning to raise the cost of Tricare for military retirees.

Mr Bush seems to think that tax cuts for oil companies that are making record profits comes before veterans healthcare.

Last year the VA had to go back to congress to beg for additional funds.

Bush also tried to cut tax deductions that companies get for employee health care programs...to raise more money to make war. Bush really cares about veterans and the working stiff. :barf:

But we have money for a giant Homeland Security Department, tax cuts for the rich, tax cuts for big oil, and tens of billions of dollars to "re-build Iraq."

 

[Eghad]

What is most shameful is that some republicans do not want veterans groups to be able to testify before Congress anymore about the VA. Seems some of them got booed by the vets and got thier feelings hurt.

"On Tuesday — three days before Veterans Day — House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Steve Buyer (R-IN) announced that for the first time in at least 55 years, “veterans service organizations will no longer have the opportunity to present testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committees.”

"Remember that Buyer was handpicked by criminally-indicted Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) to replace former veterans committee chairman Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who had been extremely vocal about the consistent underfunding of veterans causes."

You wont find this Act on his Congressional website for veterans though

If Mr. Buyer feels that He has kept the faith with veterans he should start getting his health care at the VA.


http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=56522

COL David Hackworth once said a fish rots from the head down.

 

[marks655]

Shameful indeed. Even the former Soviet Union honored its veterans.

George W. and Cheney seem quite willing to send our troops in harms way - but they were unwilling to do so themselves.

I think they should both do a few weeks of convoy duty in a pro-Sunni sector of Iraq.

 

[amaverick]

Update Part One

TO MAINTAIN ESSENTIAL SERVICES FOR VETERANS, CONGRESS MUST PROVIDE ADEQUATE FUNDING

The Independent Budget (IB), coauthored by the Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, the Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars, recommends that Congress appropriate $26 billion for veterans’ medical services in fiscal year (FY) 2007 just to maintain current service levels. The Administration’s budget for FY 2007 seeks $24.7 billion in appropriations for veterans’ medical services, which falls $1.3 billion short of the IB’s recommendation. The President’s FY 2007 medical care budget slightly increases the mental health services capacity; however, it continues the hiring freeze of all other direct health care providers at a time when an influx of new veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will place substantial new demands upon a system already struggling to meet its mission. This budget proposal estimates that only 109,191 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars will seek treatment in 2007. This reflects a decrease of 1,375 below the number of these new war veterans the VA estimates it will treat in 2006.

VA would bridge the gap between the resources needed and the appropriations requested by shifting $2.8 billion of the costs of VA medical care from the Government onto sick and disabled veterans themselves and by maintaining a freeze on new enrollments of Priority Group 8 veterans. To shift costs to veterans, The President proposes a $250 annual enrollment fee, increase pharmacy copayments for more than a million veterans seeking medical care, and establish a new collection authority. Such proposals would drive away approximately 200,000 veterans who are needed to maintain the clinical skills of medical providers and ensure VA’s high quality comprehensive medical care.

The Administration declares that it will achieve $1.1 billion in savings through new management efficiencies, which VA officials have regarded as a savings goal used to reduce requests for a higher level of annual appropriations in order to fill the gap between the cost associated with VA’s projected demand for health care services and the amount the President requested.

DAV opposes, and Congress has consistently rejected, the Administration’s proposals to place more of the burden of health care costs onto veterans. Higher medical care copayments and proposed user fees are nothing more than taxation upon the benefits of disabled veterans. Such fees depart from the fundamental principle that those benefits are provided to veterans by a grateful nation in partial compensation for their service and sacrifices. Assuming Congress agrees to impose these taxes on disabled veterans, assuming the projected savings from the unconscionable scheme to drive veterans away from the system created for them, and assuming all of the savings from the attainment of new efficiencies, the total budget authority would still fall short of what is needed to maintain services.

The proposed budget would also make further personnel reductions in VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration at a time when benefit claims are expected to increase and when unacceptable delays already are occurring due to inadequate staffing. Based on the adverse and long-standing problems from chronic understaffing in VBA’s Compensation and Pension Service (C&P), compounded by anticipated increased claims volumes, The Independent Budget recommends 10,820 FTE for C&P Service. The President’s budget requests 9,445 FTE, which would reduce direct program FTE for handling compensation claims by 149 in 2007. The budget request concedes that the already unacceptable claims backlog would grow even larger in 2006 and 2007, and to knowingly request resource levels that will only make an intolerable situation worse, is indefensible.


• Congress should provide $26 billion in appropriations for veterans’ direct medical services in FY 2007

• Congress should reject recommendations to impose additional charges upon veterans for medical care

• Congress should authorize 10,820 total FTEs for C&P Service for FY 2007

 

[amaverick]

Update part two

SUPPORT ASSURED FUNDING IN 2006 FOR
DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS HEALTH CARE

One of the hottest and most visible topics debated in Congress this past year was federal funding shortages in the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system. From the start of the year DAV and the nation’s other leading veterans service organizations warned of a serious shortfall in funding—that VA’s problems were growing and that a crisis was brewing. Unfortunately, the crisis was blatantly ignored by officials of the Administration and Congressional leadership, who apparently hoped this problem would simply go away.

In June 2005, VA was forced to acknowledge a nearly $3 billion shortfall for fiscal year (FY) 2005/2006. The VA admitted it had miscalculated and underestimated the demand growth and other factors straining and stressing the health care system. The Independent Budget was right on target. Congress addressed the shortfall for 2005 by adding $1.5 billion in emergency supplemental funding in late August. Later, Congress provided an “emergency designation” supplemental budget of $1.22 billion to VA to cover admitted fiscal year 2006 shortages.

Each year DAV, as part of the Independent Budget, fights for sufficient funding for veterans health care. Each year the level of appropriated dollars falls short of what is necessary to meet the needs of sick and disabled veterans. The current discretionary funding method, coupled with continued inadequate and frequently late budgets, has created structural under-funding that jeopardizes quality of care to America’s sick and disabled veterans.

We believe funding reform for veterans’ benefits and health care services should be a top priority for any Congress and Administration as a continuing cost of national defense. As a nation, we must be willing to bear the costs of providing special benefits to this unique group—those men and women who were willing, on behalf of all Americans, to stand the watch to secure our nation in peacetime and be prepared to fight our wars to preserve our cherished freedoms and democratic values. To assure the VA health care system is maintained as a top government priority, its funding should be made through a guaranteed mechanism to remove it from competition with other politically popular but lower priority federal programs.

Senators Tim Johnson (D-SD) and John Thune (R-SD) have both sponsored important bills, S. 331, the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act, and S. 963, the Veterans Health Care and Equitable Access Act, which would assure VA health care funding. DAV, along with other members of the Partnership for Veterans Health Care Budget Reform, recently urged Chairman Larry Craig (R-ID) and Ranking Member Daniel Akaka (D-HI) of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, to hold hearings in this session of Congress on the funding problems we reported above and to discuss a long-term funding solution. Senators Thune and Johnson made a similar request to the Veterans Committee. Chairman Craig left only a small ray of hope for the potential scheduling of this topic before the end of the year. In this regard, the same request for a hearing on health care budget reform has been made to the Chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, Steve Buyer (R-IN), to no avail. The Ranking Member of the House Committee, Representative Lane Evans (D-IL) introduced H.R. 515 in the House, the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act.

DAV believes that the efforts by Congress so far, as reported above, to prop up VA health care funding have only been band-aid solutions when the VA health care system is hemorrhaging with a variety of pent-up shortages, hiring freezes, and growing waiting lists. What could be more important for Congress at a time of war than to assure the American people that our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines in harm’s way overseas can depend on timely access to VA health care if they need it?

Our nation’s veterans deserve to be a priority in the budget. They also deserve to have their concerns about the way veterans health care is funded addressed in an official forum. Our nation’s sick and disabled veterans deserve a strong and viable health care system dedicated to their needs, especially those who have suffered catastrophic disabilities as a result of military service and will need and depend on the VA health care system and its specialized services for the rest of their lives.

Please Contact your elected officials to request a hearing on veterans health care budget reform be scheduled as a top priority in the Senate and House Veterans’ Affairs Committees.

Encourage House members to support H.R. 515, the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act.

Encourage Senate members to support S. 331, the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act, and the budget reform provisions in S. 963, the Veterans Health Care and Equitable Access Act.


SUPPORT FULL CONCURRENT RECEIPT FOR ALL DISABLED
CAREER MILITARY RETIREES

For nearly two decades, disabled military retirees have fought to end the unfair law that requires forfeiture of career retirement pay in order to receive veterans’ disability compensation.

Finally, measures have been taken to incrementally eliminate the unfair law that bans concurrent receipt, but only for career retirees who are at least 50 percent disabled. The DAV believes an unfair law should also be repealed for everyone affected by it; there should be no eligibility criteria, based on a veteran’s level of disability, to determine entitlement to justice. Something unfair to a veteran who is 50 percent disabled, is equally unfair to a veteran with a 40 percent disability.

The attempt to partially and incrementally correct the unfair offset has also led to the creation of a hodge-podge of programs with different eligibility criteria. Besides giving rise to much confusion, each new program has created unforeseen inequities that required further corrective actions. The complexity and vagueness of these programs have undoubtedly added to the costs of administration.

Congress and the President must take steps to immediately and completely rectify the unjust offset between career military retirement pay and VA disability compensation.