Bush's Veteran's Day Challenge with veto pen in hand

Bush's Veteran's Day challenge
Tuesday, October 23, 2007



Nearly three months ago, a bipartisan commission issued six practical recommendations to correct appalling flaws in the medical care our nation provides for its wounded and injured military personnel. Congress should respond with a bill to implement those reforms. And as President Bush urged last week, that legislation should be passed by Veterans Day.

That gives Congress nearly three more weeks to complete this task. Surely that should be enough time for lawmakers to make adjustments that they deem appropriate to the military health-care proposal sent to them last week by the White House. After all, revelations early this year about substandard care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington prompted widespread demands across party lines for a comprehensive transformation of the military health-care system — and prompted the president to appoint that commission.

During a news conference last week, Mr. Bush hailed that panel, led by former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole, who suffered devastating wounds of his own in World War II, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala. Citing the need for major reductions in "bureaucratic delay" and a new focus on Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD), President Bush said he's distressed when he sees wives sitting beside their husband's beds at Walter Reed not being supported by the government. "I'm concerned about PTSD, and I want people to focus on PTSD. And so we sent up a bill and I hope they move on it quickly. There's a place where we can find common ground."
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Did Bush just take office or something?

House democrats were taking out their calculators at a budget hearing last month to figure out what they called the "real increase" in VA's health care budget after subtracting the funds from collections, retiree benefits and the proposed deductible. With those dollars subtracted from the request, democrats said there would barely be an increase at all over this year's funding, instead of the $2.7 billion being touted by the administration.

The veterans service organizations that make up the Independent Budget-AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans (DAV), Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)-last month told Congress that for FY 2003 it recommends a medical care appropriation of $24.4 billion, an increase of $3.1 billion over this year's level.
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http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=360&issueID=36

Summary of Budget

The President’s 2005 budget includes $67 billion for veterans’ benefits and services, $35 billion for entitlements, and $32 billion for discretionary programs under VA-HUD jurisdiction. This is $1.2 billion above 2004.

For veterans’ medical care, the budget proposes a total of $29 billion. This is just $700 million above 2004. The budget includes $2.4 billion in co-payments from veterans and collections from insurance, $700 million more than VA will collect in 2004.

So looking at the VA’s budget for medical care, most of the increase above last year is to be paid by veterans.
http://mikulski.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=220152

As you know, VA provides a uniform set of medical benefits to eligible
veterans. If sufficient resources are not available to provide care
that is timely and acceptable in quality, VA is required to restrict
medical benefits based on veterans' eligibility priorities.[Footnote 1]
VA also provides other services, such as nursing home care, to certain
veterans. VA's provision of medical care is dependent upon the
availability of appropriations. For fiscal year 2005, Congress
appropriated $31.5 billion for all of VA's medical programs, and VA
provided medical care to about 5 million veterans. During fiscal year
2005, the President requested a $975 million supplemental request for
that fiscal year and a $1.977 billion amendment to the President's
budget request for fiscal year 2006. In congressional testimonies in
the summer of 2005, VA stated that its actuarial model understated
growth in patient workload and services and the resources required to
provide these services.[Footnote 2]
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http://www.gao.gov/htext/d06430r.html

American Legion Commander: ‘I Blame Bush And Congress’ For Veterans Cuts
President Bush spoke to the American Legion today, claiming that “support of our veterans has been a high priority in my administration,” and that one of his priorities is “making sure that our veterans have got good, decent, quality healthcare.”


President Bush should save his rhetoric. In an interview with National Public Radio, even American Legion National Commander Paul Morin, a regular political ally of the White House, pointed out that Bush has consistently skimped on veterans funding. “We are not pleased with the budget for the military and for the VA hospitals for our veterans,” Morin said. “I blame the President and Congress for insufficient funding of the VA health care system.”

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN
A look at the facts back up Morin’s claims about Bush’s short-changing of veterans:
Bush plans to cut veterans health care after 2008. “The Bush administration plans to cut funding for veterans’ health care two years from now — even as badly wounded troops returning from Iraq could overwhelm the system. … Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing rapidly — by more than 10 percent in many years — White House budget documents assume consecutive cutbacks in 2009 and 2010 and a freeze thereafter.”

Bush raises health care costs for veterans. For the fifth year in a row, Bush’s budget has attempted to raise health care costs on 1.3 million veterans, calling for “new enrollment fees and higher drug co-payments for some veterans.”

Bush administration has claimed veterans benefits are “hurtful” to national security. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal noted the growing cost of veterans benefits due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon’s response was to complain that it would “rather use [the funds] to help troops fighting today.” “The amounts have gotten to the point where they are hurtful. They are taking away from the nation’s ability to defend itself,” says David Chu, the Pentagon’s undersecretary for personnel and readiness.
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http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/06/morin-bush-va/

The truth is, Bush didn't want an increase enough to matter to the wounded. He warned congress about a veto if they increased funding enough to cover the wounded veterans.

White House warns Congress against hiking VA budget figure
01:00 AM EDT on Monday, July 2, 2007
Moves in Congress to give the Department of Veterans Affairs as much as $3.8 billion more than the Bush administration proposed has drawn an indirect veto threat from the White House.

“If Congress increases VA funding above the president’s request and does not offset this increase with spending reductions in other bills, the president will veto any of the other bills that exceed his request until Congress demonstrates a path to reach the president’s top line of $933 billion,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

The Veterans Affairs budget currently stands at $36.5 billion, and the administration has proposed raising it to $40.1 billion. In Congress, a conference committee is attempting to reconcile a House bill providing $3.8-billion beyond that with a Senate measure that would increase the administration’s proposal by $3.6 billion.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, chairman of the House veterans affairs appropriations subcommittee, said, “This bill is about respect, and honors the promises made to our veterans with historic increases in funding to provide them the health care and benefits they earned when they put on our nation’s uniform.”
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http://www.projo.com/news/veteransjournal/
Veterans_column_02_07-02-07_F467EI0.2709637.html

And the problem kept getting worse

Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Kaine will not unveil specific plans until next month, but administration officials said the governor is eyeing the elimination of "several hundred" positions out of a workforce of 100,000 people. Kaine hopes many of the reductions can be achieved through attrition, but some layoffs are likely, Wagner said.

"It is really going to be very selective layoffs of selective people," she said.

Wagner said the administration might also have to reduce staff training, establish or increase some fees and reduce the frequency of regulatory agency inspections. Kaine is also considering paying for some construction projects with borrowed funds rather than cash.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/17/AR2007091701807.html

I would really like to know who he thinks he is fooling when all of this was reported, recorded and heard by the wounded veterans and their families. Is it because he thinks the rest of the country is not paying attention?