Kerry Lies About V.A.H Heath Care Cuts

[zuni_rocket]

A Veteran Ploy
The truth about those health-care "cuts" Kerry complains about.

Sunday, October 3, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

From the outset of his campaign, John Kerry has been aiming for the veteran vote. With 25 million military veterans in the country, it would be a nice trick for him to pull off. But for all the ink spilled over the candidate's three Purple Hearts, there has been remarkably little reporting on what the Kerry campaign has been telling vets: that under President Bush, the Department of Veterans Affairs is cutting health services.

No Kerry surrogate has been more outspoken on this than former Senator and Vietnam vet Max Cleland: "I think it is crazy that Bush's VA is cutting veterans out of the system and closing hospitals during a shooting war." During the GOP Convention, Mr. Kerry told the American Legion: "When I am President, you will have a fellow veteran in the White House who understands that those who fought for our country abroad should never have to fight for what they were promised back here at home."

The problem is that these attacks have little basis in fact. When Mr. Bush took office the VA was operating like the Canadian health care system. Swamped with more patients than it could handle, the VA let vets languish on long waiting lists. Of the 3.8 million veterans then relying on Uncle Sam for health care, 300,000 waited six months or more for an initial doctor's visit or a referral to a specialist. Now there are more than five million vets being cared for each year and the waiting list is down to 3,000--a 99% improvement. The VA budget will top $70 billion next year, up from $48 billion four years ago. VA medical spending alone will reach $26.9 billion this year, up from $20.2 billion in 2001.

But these numbers tell only half the story. To find out why the VA is closing some hospitals, the Kerry campaign might put in a call to Bill Clinton. In the mid-1990s it became clear that the VA's model of large hospitals focusing on inpatient care was outmoded, wasteful and did not meet the needs of an increasingly dispersed veteran population. One estimate found that the VA was wasting $1 million a day keeping open psychiatric, tuberculosis and other empty wards. So like the rest of the health care community, the VA began offering more outpatient care by opening hundreds of clinics around the country. In 1996 the VA operated 200 clinics. Today it runs 700 and is planning additional ones in Cleveland, Las Vegas, Tampa and 150 other places. However, even government doctors cannot offer free services and then reasonably expect to treat everyone who might walk in the door. In 1996 Congress created a new system that gives greater priority to veterans who are poor or who suffer from military-related disabilities. VA Secretary Anthony Principi told us that he used these rules to determine that it is not possible right now to provide care for vets not yet in the system and who have only a few years of service, incomes above $35,000 or so and no service-related disabilities.

This is where Mr. Kerry comes in with a promise to "lead the fight" for "mandatory funding" for health care for all veterans. That sounds nice on the stump, but in practice it would make veteran benefits look a lot more like Medicare and a lot less responsive to changing veteran needs. It could also cost as much as $165 billion through 2008, according to Congressional Budget Office estimates. More federal money is almost always the answer in Washington, but it's rarely the cure.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110005707

[Gimpy]

You are so full of shit you're starting to stink up the place!

Can't you come up with a little more "credible" source than the WSJ for Gods sake! That renowned bastion of right-wing, neo-con propaganda has about as much relevance to this subject matter as does Matt Drudge!

The 2000 GOP platform criticized the Clinton administration's record on troops' health care and veterans? benefits......

[B]"When it comes to military health, the administration is not providing an adequate military health care system for active-duty service members and their families and for retired service members and their dependents. The nation is failing to fulfill its ethical, and legal health care obligations to those that are serving or have honorably served in the Armed Forces of the United States. " G.W Bush, speech during the 2000 campaign[/b]


Update: Sept. 12, 2003, Stars and Stripes: "Dishonorable Discharge: Bush administration slashes veteran?s benefits" "Even more than his father, and Ronald Reagan before him, Bush is cutting budgets for myriad programs intended to protect or improve the lives of veterans and active-duty soldiers." [Stars and Stripes:]


Update: May 27, 2004, Associated Press: "Bush Plan Eyes Cuts for Schools, Veterans" "The Bush administration has told officials who oversee federal education, domestic security, veterans and other programs to prepare preliminary 2006 budgets that would cut spending after the presidential election, according to White House documents.. . .the Veterans Affairs Department would fall 3.4 percent from $29.7 billion in 2005 to $28.7 billion. . ." [The Guardian]

Update, May 27, 2004......... The White House put government agencies on notice this month that if President Bush is reelected, his budget for 2006 will include spending cuts for virtually all agencies in charge of domestic programs, including education, homeland security and others that the president backed in this campaign year. The Department of Veterans Affairs is scheduled to get a $519 million spending increase in 2005 (which is the lowest increase in more than 10 years), to $29.7 billion, and a $910 million cut in 2006 that would bring its budget below the 2004 level. [Washington Post Thursday, May 27, 2004 ]


Update...9/17/03....Bush VA Spending Fails To Grow With Health Care Costs

Despite Bush's claims, "the annual percentage increase it requested for veterans' health care is 5.4 percent -- hardly a windfall considering that the consumer price index for medical care was 13 percent during fiscal year 2002. VA officials have testified that it would take a 13 to 14 percent hike in the VA's health care budget just to maintain the status quo." [Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL) Op-Ed, The Hill, 9/17/03]


Veterans Forced To Wait Months For Initial Visits to VA Doctors

At least 230,000 veterans are being forced to wait over six months for their initial visit to a doctor at the VA medical facilities. In some parts of the country veterans are waiting nearly two years for those visits. Bush's VA Secretary Anthony Principi has acknowledged the danger in these delays, stating "I'm concerned [the delays are] causing quality to be degraded."[Air Force Magazine, 10/21/03]

Bush Administration Is Closing Seven Veterans Hospitals


In early August 2003, the Bush administration announced it was closing hospitals in its efforts to "restructure" the Department of Veterans Affairs. Joy Ilem, assistant national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans, "questioned the need for closures and other cutbacks. 'Everyone is aware of the difficulty VA has meeting demand,' Ilem said. 'When we have hundreds of thousands of veterans on waiting lists (for medical appointments), we don't want to see facilities closed due to fiscal problems.'" There are currently 163 VA hospitals in the US. [Associated Press, 8/4/03, 10/28/03; Department of Veterans Affairs]

#####


WASHINGTON, /U.S. Newswire/ -- Thomas H. Corey, President of Vietnam Veterans of America, has called the whitewash of the decision by the House of Representatives and the President to cut $1.3 billion from the budget for veterans' health care "a slap in the face."

In a letter to Rep. Deborah Pryce, chair of the House Republican Conference, Corey wrote: "I read with a sense of dismay your report on all the good things the House and this President has done on behalf of veterans. Much of it stretches the truth.
"Yes, veterans' health care has received funding increases over the past few years," Corey wrote. "However, these increases have not kept pace with the increased demand at the VA medical centers, not to mention medical inflation. Because the budget for the VA's medical operations was flat-lined for the past three successive fiscal years, the amount being appropriated is woefully inadequate to meet the needs of the users of the VA health-care system."

What would $1.344 billion mean to veterans health care?

Congress would have to seriously consider the new copayments and enrollment fees proposed by the Bush Administration in order to keep the system operating in the next fiscal year.

This means :

New priority 8 veterans would remain ineligible for VA services indefinitely

Priority 7 and 8 veterans would have an annual enrollment fee in addition to increased copayments for pharmaceutical drugs and primary care

Only veterans with highly rated service connected disabilities (greater than 70%) would be eligible for placement in VA nursing homes. This would eliminate the need for 5000 nursing home beds from the system.

In year one VA may have to disenroll at least 168,000 veterans.

There would be no additional funds available to implement the Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Assistance Act to work toward the goal of eliminating chronic homelessness in a decade.

The current Capital Assets Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) exercise that VA is undertaking to assess the best use of its physical infrastructure will become a "de facto" closure commission with no ability to respond to veterans' needs for primary care, long-term care, and mental health projected by its own models.


$1.344 billion =

about 9,000 doctors or 19,000 nurses


about 6.6 million outpatient visits

870,000 hospital bed days of care

2 million psychiatric bed days of care


9 million nursing home bed days of care

all of VA's top-twenty priorities major construction projects (totaling about $600 million) which include desperately needed seismic and modernization projects and projects to ensure patient and employee safety

What would $463 million cuts in mandatory spending mean to veterans benefits?

Congress would have to seriously cut the benefits paid to men and women who are disabled as a result of military service. Cash benefits paid to veterans who have disabilities incurred or aggravated during military service comprise the vast majority of VA?s budget for mandatory programs. Ninety percent of the mandatory spending the Budget Committee proposes to cut is from cash payments to service disabled veterans, low-income wartime veterans and their survivors.

Other programs funded with mandatory spending are the Montgomery G.I. Bill education benefits, vocational rehabilitation and independent living programs for service-disabled veterans, subsidies for VA home loans and insurance for service-disabled veterans and funds to provide headstones, markers and flags for deceased veterans.

Even if all burial benefits, including flags and markers were eliminated to meet the Budget Committee resolution, funding for benefits for living veterans would need to be dramatically cut.

################################################

Bush Budget Shortchanges America's Veterans,
BUSH ADMINISTRATION ?05 VA BUDGET REFLECTS MISPLACED PRIORITIES, PLACES GREATER BURDEN ON SOME VETERANS

Even as middle-class Americans are struggling to achieve financial security, the Bush budget ignores the very real challenges they are facing. It fails to create jobs, and instead creates record deficits. It shortchanges education, health care, veterans' benefits, and small business. Instead of helping working families, it provides additional tax breaks for those who need them least, and billions of dollars in new giveaways to HMOs and other wealthy corporate interests.

Proposes new increases in the cost of veterans' health care .

The President's budget raises health care costs for over 1 million veterans, increasing drug co-payments and imposing new enrollment fees that will cost veterans over $2 billion over five years. For Priority 7 and 8 veterans, the budget imposes a $250 enrollment fee to receive healthcare and doubles their pharmacy co-pay from $7 to $15. This will result in driving about 200,000 veterans out of the system, and discouraging another 1 million veterans from enrolling. Every year since taking office, the Bush Administration has proposed to increase the cost of health care for veterans.


Fails to provide meaningful investment in veterans' health care.

Right now, 30,000 veterans are waiting six months or longer for an appointment at VA hospitals. But the President's budget includes an increase of less 2 percent - not enough to maintain current services and nearly $3.0 billion less than veterans' organizations agree is needed. And over five years, the budget for veterans' health care programs is $13.5 billion below the amount needed to maintain services at current levels. The Bush budget also does nothing to reverse the impact of the across-the-board cut in veterans' funding eliminating health care services for 26,500 veterans that was part of the omnibus.

Slashes funding for long-term care for America's veterans .


The Bush Administration's budget cuts $294 million from nursing home services for veterans, reducing the number of patients treated by more than 8,000.


Refuses to end the Disabled Veterans' Tax.

The President's budget fails to repeal the Disabled Veterans Tax, which forces disabled military retirees to give up one dollar of their pension for every dollar of disability pay they receive. The budget continues to require two-thirds of military retirees with service-connected disabilities - nearly 400,000 people -- to continue to pay the Disabled Veterans Tax.


Does not end the Survivor Benefits Tax.

The Survivor Benefit Plan penalizes aging survivors, mostly widows, of the veterans of our county. Military retirees pay premiums for years and anticipate that upon their death, their spouse will receive 55 percent of their benefit. But when their survivor reaches 65, a Social Security "offset" drops the benefit to a mere 35 percent. The Bush budget forces the spouses of military retirees to continue to pay this unfair tax.

Fails to expedite disability claims and threatens all veterans' benefits.

The President's budget includes only $25 million to increase the processing of disability claims - far less than what is needed. Today, there are 335,000 veterans awaiting a decision on their disability claims. About 84,000 of those veterans have been waiting six months or more for their decision. Despite this backlog, the budget makes it harder for veterans to get their disability, education, pension, housing and employment benefits by cutting 4% of the people who administer veterans' benefits .

Cuts 50,000 VA home loans.

The Bush budget cuts the number of VA home loans for veterans by 50,000 - denying VA home loans to veterans who have taken out a VA home loan in the past.

Cuts in medical and prosthetic research.

The President budget calls for a $50 million cut in award-winning VA medical and prosthetic research. This would set the research grant program back six years to FY 1999 funding levels, just as many of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan are coming home with terrible injuries that may require this expertise.


Health services for Gulf War & Iraqi veterans fail to meet growing need.

The President's budget calls for only about 6% more for the Gulf War programs to provide health-related services to veterans of the Gulf War, as well as veterans now returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. For example, funds for counseling for post-traumatic stress disorders will increase by only 8%, and readjustment counseling will increase only 3%. To meet the needs of returning troops, these programs will have to increase significantly more.

February 4, 2004

Source: Based on information provided by non-partisan Veterans Service and Military Retiree Organization resources and Web Sites.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 2, 2004
CONTACT: Susan Edgerton @ 202-225-9756 #########################


As the VA moves forward with its shameful plans to shut down veterans' hospitals, the General Accounting Office (GAO) uncovered $1.1 million in inappropriate purchases by VA officials .

Instead of benefiting those who sacrificed for our nation . More than $330,000 in VA funds went for spending sprees at stores like the Sharper Image, Radio Shack, and Gap Kids.


At the same time that veterans are struggling for their benefits, the GAO report identified purchases including 3,348 movie gift certificates (over $30,000), a digital camera ($999, when less costly models were widely available), and three cases of beer ($38). Instead of dealing with this waste, the Administration has instead decided to cut costs and exclude nearly 500,000 veterans from enrolling in VA health care.

As if that wasn't enough, on April 26, 2004, VA Secretary Principi announced 11 closings and partial closings of veterans' hospitals around the country. What's more, George Bush instructed the Veterans Administration in a secret budget memo that they would need to cut over $910 million in services by 2006.

It is unconscionable that George Bush's VA is cutting veterans out of the system, closing hospitals, and raising the price of prescription drugs while VA officials are using taxpayer money for shopping sprees .


We deserve a president who will stand up for veterans' rights, not one who is writing secret budgets and wasting our taxpayers dollars at veterans' expense.

Tell your fellow veterans, tell your friends, or call your local paper -- get the word out that veterans will not stand for George Bush's mistreatment of veterans. We deserve better. We deserve a combat veteran in the White House who won't leave American servicemen and women behind.

None of this is new, Republicans have been attacking the budgets for veterans since at least the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan issued a proposal to cut 20,000 medical personnel in the VA and proposed to scrap a counseling program for veterans, during the middle of a surge of Vietnam veterans suicide attempts. The first President Bush cancelled burial benefits for veterans and cut $600 million from the VA.


The theoretical reason that Republicans give for these cuts is to cut fraud, waste and abuse, that's bullshit and they KNOW it!.

Joe Fox of Paralyzed Veterans of Americans said "the reduction will slam the poorest disabled veterans and cut GI Bill benefits for soldiers who are currently serving in Iraq." It could also eliminate 9000 doctors from an already taxed system. Fox said it was "an in-your-face insult to the veterans of this country."

And all this is coming at a critical time. The group Disabled American Veterans says that the VA is already facing a $2 billion shortfall. "Pressures on the VA health care system have escalated to a critical point that can no longer be ignored by our government," said Joe Violante, legislative director for the Disabled American Veterans.


Due to a shortage of funding there is a backlog in claims from Gulf War veterans of almost 500,000 (a third of veterans of that war) and another 500,000 compensation and pension cases backlogged.


Also because of budget cuts, the VA has had to treat more than 1.4 million additional veterans in the last seven years with 20,000 fewer staff employees. According to VAIW this means hardships for any veterans who need new benefits in the future: "Some will have to stand in line, others will be refused, and still others may face new $250 enrollment fees," and "a quarter-million vets [will have] to wait up to 10 months for specialized treatment and surgery."

This has also meant that clinics and hospitals have had to stop accepting new patients (about 164,000 vets).


For anyone to believe other than the above F-A-C-T-S................

They must evidently have their heads in the sand OR so far up their ASSES they are unable to see the truth for the $hit in eyes!

:re: :re: :re:

[SuperScout]

the Democrat party, which controlled everything that had to do with veterans benefits for 40 years, didn't fix the problem when they had the power. It was only a Republican president that signed into law the partial correction of concurrent receipt, but whiny little liberals are too busy braying about things that should have been that they fail to be thankful for anything.

And in case you haven't heard, or have had read to you, Gimpy, the WSJ is a very credible source of news, much unlike your boys at CBS, who have to manufacture phony documents to sell air time.

[reconeil]

"Kerry LIES about VA". Well,...WOW and whoop-whoopy-do, and why not? Hell Jim,...Kerry has LIED about most everything, going back 30 years (or longer?) and/or when doing his FIRST despicable and United States undermining act ala Jane Fonda, WHICH WAS DONE ENTIRELY for gaining political notoriety and political advancement.

Hell, at least Jane Fonda was just younger and more stupid,...and in all likelihood probably didn't even realize what she was doing? Whereas DESPICABLE KERRY knew exactly how harmful to America "His" lies would be for both America and U.S. Troops,...SAME AS NOW.

Still, and can I totally understand foolish and easily deceived or duped civilians going along with DNC's and/or Kerry's political deceits and/or: "Tell The People whatever they want to hear" bull, since "They" mostly know no better and actually believe EVERYTHING Dem favorable coming from "Their" Greatly Dem Supportive Press/Media.

However, I'll just never understand how ANY Honorable Veterans could so similarly adore such Vietnam Blood Drenched & Dishonorable Bums, like either Jane Fonda, Bill Clinton or John Kerry. Just doesn't compute, and will never make any sense to me.

Makes more sense to write-in vote for Ho Chi Min,...than voting for Kerry. At least Ho's dead and long-gone and can't cause America SO DAMN MUCH TROUBLE,...as Kerry can quite likely do.

Neil :cd:

[Gimpy]

there SuperShouter....(and Neil)........I don't see you or anyone ELSE offering any credible refutation of the facts I've presented????

Unlike that horsehockey and misinformation I discredited from the WSJ! :cd: :cd: :cd:

PS...............Don't worry.......my complete and factual compiltaion of information that thoroughly discredits zunis' misinformation is probably entirely too lengthy and intellectually above and beyond the comprehension skills of Neil and a few others of the limited, intelligence quotient required to rationally understand it anyway!

[Gimpy]

waiting???? :cd: :cd: :cd: :cd: :cd: :re: :re:

[reconeil]

Gimpy's 2 foot long display of calling outrageous increases ONLY increased accordingly by Republicans and/or as neeeeeeded: "CUTS" (typical Democrat deceptive ploy) aside, both of you should be commended for cutting through all the Fonda/Clintons/Kennedy/Kerry Party/Clique BULL & DECEIT, with your posts and replies.
Too bad not done on a grander scale? Hope many others read patriotfiles.com also?

Regardless, and in fairness to Gimpy, and even though the best that such like Gimpy can come up with when cornered or obviously caught on a fools errand is CHILDISHLY NAME CALLING,..."He" did get my attention on a couple of things, while typically doing The DNC's bidding of deny, deny, deny or divert, divert, divert.

The things of interest by Gimpy while feebly attempting to place ALL DEMOCRAT PURPOSEFUL DECEIVERS in a favorable light (actually a: "Mission Impossible"), while despicably undermining A Wartime Commander-In-Chief and demoralizing U.S. Troops, were:..."Refuses to end The Disabled Veterans Tax" and "Does not end The Survivor Benefit Tax". Good questions.

Still, and just out of curiosity, I wonder if Gimpy has any idea whatsoever,...just as whom-the-hell made such laws in the first place???????????????????,...which he now believes should be changed or ended?

Gee,...I wonder WHOM??? Could it be the same type of fools like Johnson, Carter, Clinton and Gore (The Deciding Senate Vote on taxing Social Security) that screwed-up The Social Security System forever,...WHOM also decided to have a DAV Tax and Survivor Benefits Tax?? Seems par for The Democrat/Socialist Course (both ways) .

Neil

[Gimpy]

a little "history" lesson for ya there Neil!

The Survivor Benefit Plan penalizes aging survivors, mostly widows, of the veterans of our county only if you served on active duty or active duty for training after Dec. 31, 1956.

This provision of the Public Law and CFR was proposed by the Eisenhower administrations' Defense Department as a "cost reduction" plan in 1955. Then, the Comptroller General (CG) ruled on the offset issue in Case # 62, CG 471 in 1983 (unfavorably for military veterans), during the first Reagan administration. And again when Public Law (P.L..) 99-145 became effective March 1, 1986, after the second Reagan administrations' Defense Department recommendations were included in that years budget (cost cutting again!) and established the "two-tier" system of computing Social Security offsets.

Military retirees pay SBP premiums for years and anticipate that upon their death, their spouse will receive 55 percent of their benefit. But when their survivor reaches 65 (under the current "plan"), a Social Security "offset" drops the benefit to a mere 35 percent. The current (and future) Bush budget forces the spouses of military retirees to continue to pay this unfair tax.

The law forbidding military service members from simultaneously receiving full base pay and full disability compensation was enacted in 1892 by angry Southern and Mid-Western conservative Democrats AND Republicans to prevent U. S. troops from the civil war from "double-dipping" as they called it, while troops of the Confederacy received NO compensation whatsoever!

The law barring military retirees from collecting both full disability and full retired pay (commonly referred to as "concurrent receipt" or "The Disabled Veterans Tax") was enacted in 1944 during the FDR adminstration.

So, it appears there is enough "blame" to go around on BOTH sides of the political "spectrum" to satisfy everyone! Only when and until the Vietnam "generation" of disabled veterans began raising holy hell about this injustice did the political atmosphere begin to change and resulted in the "campaign" to get this bullshit corrected.

The "problem" is...................the Bush administration has gone on record to oppose the outright reversal of this law and it will take more than ten years to complete the current "phase in" of the so-called "solution" they have put in place. The appaling truth of the matter is that most of the veterans who would benefit from the change in this law will be dead and gone by the time the current Bush "plan" is fully implemented! It would have only taken on the order of 10% or so of the FIRST Bush "tax cut" to FULLY implement this reversal of the law! But, we know where GEE-W's "priorities" are ..............DON'T WE?????

[razar]

GIMPY,
I don't have the time to try and research all of the info you laid forth on the VA thing.I can only speak from my personal experience with the VA here in Okla City.
34 yrs ago we sat in lthe hallways on the floor while waiting to see a Dr.Sometimes we had to come back several times before we could see a Dr.As the years past they built a large room on the north of facility with chairs.Improvement.We still waited all day ,and sometimes still couldn't get in.That includes those of us who already had an approved service connected disability.Mine is 20%.
Now in 1982[Reagan in office]I received a letter telling me to report to the VA for a reevaluation of my disability.Whil sitting on the floor in the hall way I asked several Vets about what was going on,and the whole hallway seemed to lhave gotten the same letter.WW2,Korea,and VN vets---all were being reevaluated.I asked the Dr. who was measuring my scars and checking for function what this was all about.He said it came down from D.C. to reevaluate, and and cut where feasible.I was cut 10% as it related to my function.I did not appeal because of the fact that their were men there with more severe bisabililties then mine.
Many years passed,and I had to ask for another eval,and the Dr.said my function due to the original surgey,and the damage fom the wound,should never had been reduced.
In the 90's the Clinton Administration cut thousands of personnel from the VA,and I noticed the problems at the VA here were exacerbated.
Today we now have a Personal Physician,and our appointments are kept to within 15 minutes of our appointment time.All personnel are asked for medicare or personal ionsurance cards,which are being billed for services.That is fine with me.I have good Company Insurance [Aetna],and they pay the VA for services rendered.
I realize you have to waith months for MRI's--I did--and the Cardiology department is not the quickest,but our emergency room here is available ,and it is new and very well run.

I feel from what I have seen and been involved in that both parties neglect the VA until election time.

I disagree with the VA having to submit a budget every year,I feel they should be fully funded--no questions asked but keep a good oversight on their spending--.

Now what I'am going to state might piss off some people.

I DON'T CARE IF THE GOVERNMENT HAS TO CUT SOCIAL WELFARE PROGRAMS,FARM SUBSIDIES,CORPORATE SUBSIDIES,MIDINGHT BASKETBALL,100,000 COPS-FIREMAN-PLUMBERS-ELECTRICIANS-TRUCK DRIVES-LAWYERS-COOKS-CANDLE STICK MAKERS ETC.THE VA SHOULD BE FULLY FUNDED.

NO VET WITH A SERVICE CONNECTED DISABILITY SHOULD HAVE TO WAIT FOR COMPENSATION OR HEALTH CARE.I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH A MEANS TEST FOR NON-SERVICE CONNECTED VETS.THE PRIORITY LEVELS ARE FINE.PRIVATE INSURANCE AND MEDICARE MAKING PAYMENTS TO THE VA IS ALSO FINE.

THE VA HAS AND ALWAYS WILL BE A POLITICAL FOOTBALL BY ALL POLITICIANS UNTIL THEY ARE FULLY FUNDED.THEN YOU CAN VOTE FOR THE BEST MAN,AND NOT THE BEST BULLSHITTER.

[zuni_rocket]

Gimpy, A little history in the title there for you & the WSJ is a lot more respectful source than the DNC/Communist Manifesto where you seem to get you a great deal of your facts! LMAO!
That's a fact Jact! hey! hey! ho! ho! sign the form 180!

the Kerry Rap
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/bommer/Jo...Bad%20Rap.html