Veterans Administration Health Care In Big Trouble!

[Gimpy]

LEGACY OF THE LAST CONGRESS (109th )!

Well folks it appears that the "legacy" of the last republican controlled Congress will live on to further harm and or injure most of the disabled veterans of this country. How nice of those assholes, huh?



110th CONGRESS FACES DIFFICULTY PASSING 2007 BUDGET, LEAVING VA WITH A $3.3 BILLION SHORTFALL -- Veterans' groups say healthcare rationing, hiring freezes and delayed construction are all possibilities if VA has to operate at 2006 budget level.


Veterans Affairs facing $3.3B shortfall this year
By Evan Lehmann, Transcript Washington Bureau


WASHINGTON January 15, 2007 ? Incomplete budget work by the 109th Congress threatens to erode the availability of health care for veterans at a time when the influx of patients returning from Iraq and Afghanistan is already testing the Department of Veterans Affairs, according to advocacy groups and lawmakers.


The department faces a $3.3 billion shortfall this fiscal year, a loss that could limit construction projects and hiring initiatives and cause health-care "rationing" in a department with more than five million patients, veterans groups say.


"The VA would essentially be forced to prioritize appointments or cut back on appointments, Carl Blake, acting national legislative director with Paralyzed Veterans of America, said Friday.


"We're already hearing anecdotally that the VA is struggling to meet demand," he said. "If this drags out for the course of the year, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the VA is going to be behind in providing services for veterans."


Preoccupied with the possiblity of losing elections last fall, followed by a historic exchange of power, the Republican Congress adjourned last year without finishing several spending measures, including a $32 billion budget for the Veterans Health Administration.


The Democratic Congress, meanwhile, is having difficulty arriving at a comprimise solution with the Whitehouse Office of Mangement & Budget to establish a budget for fiscal 2007, already one-quarter complete by the time they were sworn in last week. Instead, to avoid the distinct possibility of a veto by president Bush,Congress is indicating it may have to fund many federal agencies at last year's level ? $29.3 billion for the VHA, which is more than $3 billion below the proposed funding level for this year.


"It's unconscionable that the Republican Congress adjourned without providing adequate funding for the health care of our men and women who served in harm's way," said Sen. Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Armed Services Committee's panel on personnel.


The funding shortfall comes as a stream of veterans are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking health care. The VA underestimated the impact of that influx in 2005, creating uproar in Congress as lawmakers bridged the gap with a $1 billion emergency appropriation.


The new shortfall could eclipse that mishap, veterans groups say.


"In my opinion, it handcuffs hospital directors and division directions," said Steve Robertson, legislative director with the American Legion. "And I honestly believe it ends up rationing care."


Massachusetts has five VA medical centers, including the Edith Nourse Rogers Memorial Veterans Hospital in Bedford, with more than 1,000 employees, and 17 community-based outpatient clinics.


More than 200,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have visited VA medical facilities around the nation, three times what the VA predicted, according to Linda Bilmes, a public finance professor at Harvard s Kennedy School of Government.


More than 50,000 Americans have been wounded in the conflicts.


"The result is that as the Iraq war approaches its fourth anniversary, the Department of Veterans Affairs is buckling under a growing volume of disability claims and rising demand for medical attention," Bilmes said this week in a Los Angeles Times editorial.


The Pentagon does not track the number of wounded by state, according to Kennedy's office. Forty-five service members from Massachusetts have been killed in Iraq, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.


As the VA has underestimated the cost of its new patient load, the waiting list for newly returned veterans' first visit to medical centers has grown.


In July 2004, there were 5,132 new patients waiting for an initial visit, compared to 29,442 in March 2006, according to a report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.


"The strain on the VA is enormous," said U.S. Rep. Marty Meehan, a Lowell Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. "While there has been tremendous progress in terms of protecting soldiers and Marines, we are seeing more of our troops coming back with serious physical and mental combat-related wounds."


"The VA is simply not equipped to care for these veterans," he said.

-------END--------

Please, please contact your Senator and Congressman (or woman) and tell them to not be intimidated by the Bush Whitehouse and to vote to pass the NEW VA Budget and force the Presidents hand to see if he REALLY supports veterans.......or NOT!

Contact your House Rep. here... http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Contact your Senators here... http://www.senate.gov/general/
contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

[Gimpy]

back up front in case some folks didn't have the opportunity to read it.

[39mto39g]

"according to advocacy groups"

[Gimpy]

Ron, "advocacy groups" like the DAV, VFW, AMVETS, American Legion, Paralyzed Veterans Of America, Vietnam Veterans Of America, Military Order Of The Purple Heart, Retired Military Officers Association, and on, and on and on.

You know, those folks with more than half-a-century of 'expertise' in this realm of knowledge. The folks that 'advocate' for veterans like you, me and about 26 million others like us.

[SuperScout]

If this is such a crisis, and I have absolutely no doubt that it is, then why wasn't positive action planned during the First 100 Hours, the much ballyhooed action plan for the new Democrat congress? The logical conclusion is (a) it isn't as severe of a crisis as reported, or (b) the issue doesn't rank very high with the Democrat hierarchy.

[39mto39g]

Ok Gimp
Truth is your article was just to long and I didn't read it all.
What does it say in 3 sentences only.

Personally, I think Veterans that need help, get help.
Ones that in it for some king of scam find it difficult to scam.
But then I have no idea.
Ron

[Gimpy]

You evidently don't "have an idea"...........or a 'clue' about this issue because obviously the real evidence that proves you wrong and clueless is much to "long" for you to read and comprehend.

That's too bad, because by "reading" and "comprehending" along with our own personal experiences with the subject matter is how most of us learn to tell the difference between rhetorical bullshit and the actual truth of the matter. Which, by the way, all those "advocacy groups" mentioned previously have stated (on the public and Congressional record in SWORN TESTIMONY) that you are in fact ---incorrect.

But, then again I may have no idea either--------But I doubt it.


PS----Superfella, you can honestly sit there and complain about the first "100 hours" of this new 110th democratic Congress while the piss-poor record of these guys in the republican majority 109th Congress set new milestones for financial and moral hanky-panky, which includes more than 20 members under federal investigation or indictment? Along with the fact (substantiated by ALL the military service orgs!) that it was THIS PAST Congress (109th) that regularly and consistently UNDERfunded the VA thoughout their miserable existence?

[39mto39g]

Gimp
It's not my fault your long winded and I didn't say I didn't comprehend, I just didn't read it, If you would put it in 3 sentences like I asked I would read it, I guess you didn't comprehend.
If I would bother to read what you wrote , I would guess I could post a 2 sentence explanation of what it is you said.
I just don't read long winded articles that could be said with a few sentences.
Chiefs at work would ask me "did you read my memo" I would reply NO, it was to long, what did it say, in 1 sentence.

Most people don't read long winded opinions on any subject, even with some facts in there for meat.

[the humper]

V.A., Does ANYONE, know that it has EVER been fully funded in the initial bill, I have never heard of same!!!!!!!

And there is one whale of a difference in UNDERSTANDING and COMPREHENDING !!!!!!!

[SuperScout]

Amen!

gimpy, obviously, you didn't read my post any better than ron read yours. Where was I complaining about the new congress? All I was saying is that the issue of the $3.3 billion 'shortfall' isn't even on the far horizon of da dims, much less the first 100 hours. And as the humper said, has there ever been a federal agency that has been fully funded? So what's your choice, "a" or "b"? Or can you conjure up "c".