"woefully Inadequate"!

[Gimpy]

Paralyzed Veterans of America Calls Administration?s Budget Proposal Woefully Inadequate, Forcing Some Veterans to Pay for the Health Care of Others by Increasing Fees and Co-payments.


February 8, 2005, Washington, DC?The release of the FY 2006 Budget request by the Administration demonstrates a callous disregard for the services of America?s veterans and represents another attempt to place the burden of needed funding increases on the backs of sick and disabled veterans.


?I don?t understand where their priorities are,? said Randy Pleva, national president of PVA. ?At a time when more and more service members are returning from Iraq and Afghanistan in need of health care and when aging veterans of previous wars are turning to the VA for their medical needs, the Administration proposes a basically flat budget with the only increases coming out of veterans? pockets. This is just not acceptable.?

Discounting the projected additional revenues from an annual $250 enrollment fee and more than doubling prescription co-pays for thousands of veterans the proposal only calls for additional appropriations of $111 million ? an increase of only four-tenths of 1 percent.


In contrast, PVA along with its partners who co-author The Independent Budget recommends $31.2 billion for veterans? health care, an increase of $3.5 billion to meet realistic inflation and health care demand increases . This increase does not include onerous enrollment fees or increased co-payments for prescriptions.


Pleva pointed out that the only rationale he could find for the Administration again proposing enrollment fees and higher co-pays was to drive veterans out of the system . VA estimates that as a result of the increased fees 213,000 veterans will leave the health care system next fiscal year.


?These proposals have been rejected by Congress the past two years; I don?t see why the Administration continues to try to force veterans to bear the burden of needed increases in health care funding,? Pleva said. ?The men and women who use the VA system have already paid for their care through their military service. For many veterans these added costs will force them to leave the system.?