Research - Rehabilitation - Re-Employment

Sgt. Shaft 11/04/2002

Dear Sgt. Shaft:
The Department of Veterans Affairs health care system needs dependable and stable funding. The proverbial handwriting is on the wall. During my Sept. 25 tour of the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Cheyenne, Wyo., I witnessed an operation of hard-working people who served veterans as best they could. However, there simply were not enough of them to handle the patient load. The White River VA complex in Vermont was rumored to have been targeted for closing four years ago. Coming to the rescue, the Vermont congressional delegation obtained additional funding for their VA hospital by including it in the Federal Rural Health Initiative. However, when Sen. James Jeffords went back to his home state of Vermont to tour the facility Oct. 9, he acknowledged, in front of hospital staff, that funding would remain a long-term problem. "... there aren't enough doctors or nurses or support staff to treat the people who need treatment," he said. Indeed, surgeons there handled 2,000 cases in the last year, a 100 percent increase over the 1998 caseload. Sen. Tim Johnson last month talked about how overburdened VA health care facilities have been back home in South Dakota. On the floor of the U.S. Senate recently, Sen. Johnson said, "In Sioux Falls, veterans are currently being given appointment dates for November 2003." November 2003! How did the system become so stressed? Two major reasons: soaring medical inflation and VA's reputation for quality health care which, combined with measures to make more veterans eligible to receive VA treatment, increased demand considerably. VA will have treated nearly 5 million veterans in the current fiscal year, about a third more than it treated in the last fiscal year, according to VA estimates. And more than 6 million veterans have enrolled to make VA their primary health care provider. Bottom line: More than 300,000 veterans have been waiting for appointments in the VA medical system. 

The time has come to shift the funding of VA health care from discretionary to mandatory so that funding can keep pace with medical inflation and the burgeoning demand for VA health care. Moreover, under mandatory funding, the dedicated staffs at VA medical centers would no longer be forced to treat veterans with rationed resources. Making VA health care funding mandatory would help to ensure that VA would receive enough federal dollars to treat every veteran eligible to use the system. VA health care would be funded the way Social Security, Medicare, and VA disability compensation and pension programs have been funded. A formula would be included in the legislation to determine the appropriate level of funding. Under the current discretionary-funding process, VA health care has been dependent on the whim of congressional appropriations, resulting in continual under funding. House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Smith of New Jersey and Sen. Johnson have introduced legislation that would make VA health care funding mandatory: H.R. 5250 and S. 2903, respectively titled the "Veterans Health-Care Funding Guarantee Act of 2002." If enacted, the legislation would boost VA health care funding to $25.6 billion in the 2004 fiscal year, a 120 percent increase over 2002 funding. Funding henceforth would be increased based on the number of those eligible to receive treatment and the percentage increase in the Consumer Price Index. The American Legion has joined forces with the Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans in advocating passage of the "Veterans Health-Care Funding Guarantee Act of 2002." It is our hope that Congress will approve this important legislation and that the president will sign it into law.

RONALD F. CONLEY
National Commander
The American Legion
Washington

Dear Commander,
As I Have previously mentioned in my columns,

Two years ago, the Congress passed TRICARE for Life, a new program to guarantee lifelong health care for military retirees and their families. This legislation assured hundreds of thousands of military families free health care services sponsored entirely by the government. H.R. 5250 and S 2903 would extend the same kind of guarantee to the remainder of America's veterans, to assure their continued access to the VA health care system. 

It should be noted that this legislation would neither take away the Secretary's power to manage the VA health care system nor to curtail the Secretary's control of enrollments in VA. And unlike TRICARE for Life, it would not extend benefits to family members of veterans. 

We have a sacred obligation to ensure that our nation's veterans receive the honors and benefits that they have earned through their service to this nation.

In the past decade, more and more veterans have turned to the Department of Veterans Affairs for medical services particularly World War II and Korean War veterans. As you have indicated, the demand for services, however, continues to outpace the supply of federal funding of VA health care. It is becoming increasingly clear that Congress needs to look at new methods and sources for veterans' health care funding, and to seek additional ways to match resources to the growing demand such as the amendment that was attached to the Department of Defense authorization bill that seeks to increase health care resources sharing between the DoD and VA health care systems. VA continues to struggle each year to provide all the funds needed for the tasks it faces in caring for millions of frail, elderly veterans.

I urge all members of Congress to actively support this vital legislation, which will guarantee adequate health care funding for our nation’s veterans.

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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