Veterans Groups Critical of Bush's VA Budget; May Look to Kerry for Help

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Mary said:

 

Let me get this straight: because of Bush's ill-begotten wars, the number of vets needing medical care is soaring. Because of Bush's wars, we have been spent into an unimaginable deficit, hence we cannot afford proper and deserved vet care. One hand cuts off the other. Unlike Bush and the majority of his administration who took the vets to war ("led" is hardly a proper word for those who fought from their living rooms and offices), Kerry has fought in war and knows first hand the physical and mental injuries which demand this for care.Veterans Groups Critical of Bush's VA Budget Dismay Over Higher Fees and Staff Cuts Could Be Boon for Democratic Nominee By Edward WalshSpecial to The Washington PostWednesday, March 3, 2004; Page A25 Military veterans have already played a prominent role in the 2004 presidential campaign, helping to propel one of their own -- Sen. John F. Kerry of Massachusetts -- close to the Democratic nomination. If he is the nominee, Kerry is counting on strong support from his fellow veterans in the general election battle against President Bush.And Kerry may be getting an unintended boost from the Bush administration's proposed budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs in the next fiscal year.After three years of mostly cordial relations with the administration, leaders of veterans' organizations and a union that represents VA workers are voicing strong criticism of Bush's fiscal 2005 budget plan. They assert that the budget would only worsen the backlog in processing disability claims, reduce the number of VA nursing home beds just as the number of veterans who need long-term care is swelling and force some veterans to pay a fee simply to gain access to the VA health care system.In a statement issued shortly after the budget was released, Edward S. Banas Sr., commander in chief of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, called the VA's health care spending proposal "a disgrace and a sham."VA officials reply that spending for health care will increase under the budget, but that tough choices had to be made because of the soaring budget deficit and limits on spending.According to John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, the VA is calling for a reduction of 540 full-time jobs in the Veterans Benefits Administration, which handles disability, pension and other claims by veterans."VBA is under such pressure to get the caseload down, and now they are going to cut the staff," he said. "These things don't make sense on their face."Mark Catlett, the VA's principal deputy assistant secretary for management, said only 35 of the jobs that would be eliminated through attrition involve employees who process disability claims, in which the backlog problem is most severe. He said the elimination of many of the jobs would be the result of a consolidation of the department's pension processing functions.Catlett said the lower staffing levels proposed in the budget assume an increase in productivity by VA employees. "We clearly have a responsibility to get more productive," he said.The more contentious issue involves the VA's sprawling health care system. The budget calls for spending $29.5 billion for veterans' health care in the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, a 4.2 percent increase over current spending.But critics in the veterans' organizations say the budget would effectively cut health care spending because about $2.4 billion of the total would not come from congressional appropriations but from fees and other charges collected from third parties and from veterans themselves.Under the budget, some veterans would have to pay $250 a year to use the VA health care system; their co-payments for a 30-day supply of a prescription drug would also more than double, from $7 to $15. The proposed changes would affect only the veterans with no service-related health problems whose relative high income places them in the two lowest priority classifications.VA officials estimate that the new "user fee" would produce about $268 million a year and that the higher pharmacy co-payment would add about $135 million a year in revenue. They also project that these higher costs will prompt about 200,000 of the affected veterans to drop out of the system and get their health care elsewhere.John McNeill, deputy director of the VFW, credited the Bush administration with increasing the VA's health care budget during the last few years. But, he added, "just as they are getting close [to the needed level of spending], this proposal retrogrades everything. It doesn't even take care of the inflation factor."Linda Bennett, AFGE's legislative director, was equally critical of the proposed cuts in nursing home care, which she said would reduce the number of full-time VA nursing home beds to 37 percent below the level set in law by Congress in 1998. She said the VA has been trying to move more veterans into state-run nursing homes and "non-institutional" settings, such as home health care programs."I look at it as a signal that the VA would like to get out of the business of taking care of veterans in their old age," Bennett said.But Catlett said long-term care at home is usually "better and preferred" to a nursing home, and that the VA is directly or indirectly providing long-term care to more veterans than ever. "We're trying to get the right balance," he said. "There will always be VA nursing homes."Catlett also said the user fee and higher co-payments for the lowest priority veterans would help the department pay for its core mission -- to care for low-income veterans, especially those with service-related health problems.Last year, Congress rejected a similar proposal for a user fee and higher co-payments and may do so again. But the congressional debate will almost certainly become embroiled in presidential politics as Bush and his Democratic opponent vie for the allegiance of veterans.Bob Wallace, executive director of the VFW's Washington office, said that even veterans who would not be affected by the budget proposals "hear that their comrades are affected by it, and it bothers them."Whether that will hurt Bush in the fall is not clear, but American Legion National Commander John Brieden said, "This sure doesn't help him. The PR on this is not good. I expect the Democrats, whether it's Kerry or whoever, to beat Bush over the head with this."http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24665-2004Mar2?language=printer