Research - Rehabilitation - Re-Employment
Dear Sgt Shaft, As we begin the 109th Congress, Capitol Hill is sprinkled with new faces including lawmakers and professional staff members. There will be a new Secretary for Veterans Affairs (VA) and two new Chairmen of the Veterans' Affairs Committees.
Amongst these changes, one constant will remain - the unified effort of the veterans' community towards changing VA's health care funding from "discretionary" to guaranteed "direct" spending. The dynamic mismatch between demand for services and inadequate discretionary appropriations severely handicaps the VA's ability to meet its federally mandated health care missions:
Surprisingly to most Americans, nearly 90 percent of all Federal health care dollars in the current Federal budget (over $500 billion) is already guaranteed "direct" or "mandatory" funding for programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Those scarce "discretionary" health care dollars are only spent on Native Americans, veterans, and active-duty service members and their families.
The task at hand is to convince lawmakers that veterans - past, present, and future - earned the right, through honorable military service to timely access to quality health care. This certainly should be the priority of a grateful nation. .
Today, not one eligible Medicare or Medicaid beneficiary is denied timely access to quality health care, but there are hundreds of thousands of eligible VA beneficiaries that are denied not only timely access to, but also enrollment in the VA health care system. Surely, this is an aberration, an oversight for a nation at war.
Thomas P. Cadmus
National Commander
The American Legion
Dear Commander
Recently the GOP leadership dumped Rep. Chris Smith as chairman of the of the
House Veterans Affairs committee for taking Lincolns words “to care for him who
shall have borne the battle and for his widow and for his orphan to heart, This
as you know sends a message that veterans once again will be a part of budget
scapegoating. In a recent interview new Chairman, Representative Steve Buyer
spoke of the oath taken by each and every veteran as he or she commences active
duty. He resonated how we as Americans should be grateful to those who serve,
“Coming from a military family places me in a position to have a dimension of
what it means to serve the country in uniform. I believe that is the dimension
for which I will serve in the House Veterans Affairs committee to look out for
the men and women of whom have served this nation and to ensure the nation then
honors their service, to make sure our commitment to them in our programs and
earned benefits are sustained in the future”. Let us not then, Mr., Chairman pit
one veteran against another by restricting access to VA Health care. We had too
much of that during the presidential campaign
The Department of Veterans Affairs does not receive reimbursement from either Medicare or Medicaid for taking care of our veterans, even though half of the enrolled veterans are 65 or older and many others fall below the poverty level.
Mandatory funding must be passed by Congress in order to end the beg, borrow, and steal approach of providing health care to our nation’s veterans.
We have a sacred obligation to ensure that they receive the honors and benefits that they have earned through their service to our great country.
All veterans deserve quality health care and according to a recently released independent study,
Patients in the health care system operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) receive significantly better care than private-sector patients. "This study confirms what VA patients already know – that VA is leading the health care industry in this country."
The study by RAND, an independent think-tank, found that VA patients were significantly more likely than non-VA patients to receive needed preventative care. The study also found that VA patients with chronic medical problems received the treatment they needed more often than private-sector patients.
Researchers examined the medical records of nearly 600 VA patients and about 1,000 non-VA patients with similar health problems. Researchers compared the treatment received by both groups to well-established standards for medical care for 26 conditions.
They found that about 51 percent of non-VA patients received care that met the latest standards of the health care profession, compared with 67 percent for VA patients. For preventative care, such as pneumonia vaccination and certain cancer screenings, 64 percent of VA patients received the appropriate care, compared to only 44 percent in the private sector.
Researchers attributed the difference to technological innovations, such as VA's computerized patient records, and to policies holding top managers accountable for standards in preventative care and the treatment of long-term conditions.
"This study confirms that VA's computerized patient records and our ongoing performance measurement of patient care ensure that veterans receive the highest quality health care," said Dr. Jonathan Perlin, VA's acting under secretary for health.
The RAND study, done in cooperation with the University of California at Los Angeles and the University of Michigan, was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine. It is available at www.rand.org/publications.
Mr. Chairman, George Washington stated that “The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.”
Send letters to Sgt. Shaft, c/o John Fales, P.O. Box 65900, Washington, D.C. 20035-5900; fax to 301-622-3330; call 202-462-4430 or email sgtshaft@bavf.org.
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