Veterans suffer when no one wants to pay the price for them

Too many years of hearing some people talk about "supporting the troops but they are just nowhere to be found when it really comes to doing it. The worst part is, the general public has just accepted words while demanding no proof.

"It's time to come together and support our great American men and women in uniform and their commander-in-chief," said Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a contender for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination. He has been among the most supportive in his party of a possible military strike against Iraq.

Tom Delay, in the same report said that "suggesting that lawmakers keep any thoughts of disagreement to themselves" in other words, the debate about sending men and women into another war was not worthy of debate. What did he think was worthy of debating if not the fact men and women sent would die?

It seems they didn't plan for the National Guards or Reservists.

Landrieu Amendment to Supplemental Appropriations Act to Support Department of Defense Operations in Iraq for Fiscal Year 2003
The amendment, proposed by Sen. Mary Landrieu, would have appropriated $1 billion to procurement for the National Guard and Reserves. The amendment was intended to fill a Guard and Reserve shortage of "helmets, tents, bullet-proof inserts, and tactical vests" and "chemical and biological protective gear". Landrieu based the $1 billion on National Guard and Reserve Unfunded Requirement lists. The amendment would offset the $1 billion appropriation with a $1 billion reduction in President Bush's tax cuts

Supplemental Appropriations Act to Support Department of Defense Operations in Iraq for Fiscal Year 2003
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ted Stevens, includes an appropriation of $603 million for "force protection gear and combat clothing"

Dodd Amendment to Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan Security and Reconstruction Act, 2004
The amendment, offered by Sen. Chris Dodd, would have added $322 million to the $300 million already appropriated towards the purchase of "high-tech body armor, bullet-proof helmets, special water packs to keep soldiers hydrated, and other survival gear.

Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for Iraq and Afghanistan Security and Reconstruction Act, 2004
The bill, proposed by Sen. Ted Stevens, includes $300 million in appropriations for the purchase of body armor for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Ronald W. Reagan National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005
The bill, sponsored by Sen. John Warner, reported out of conference committee with $435 million in appropriations for individual body armor.

While congress approved of making more disabled veterans in 2001 with troops sent into Afghanistan, they were not even willing to pay for the veterans we already had.

Budget Proposed for Fiscal Year 2003
The latest projection from the Department of Veterans Affairs is that almost 700,000 more veterans will receive VA care in 2003 than had been projected last year for 2002. The hundreds of VA community outpatient clinics opened over the last six years, as well as the prescription drug benefit that provides a 30-day supply of medication for a modest $7 copayment, have produced an unprecedented increase in veterans using the VA health care system. The nation’s 25 million veterans, particularly its elderly veterans who saw service during World War II and the Korean War, are voting with their feet for VA health care, and the VA system is being overwhelmed.

Last November, the Administration was considering whether to deny health care to Priority 7 veterans in response to a funding shortfall caused by errors in estimating the number of veterans who would seek VA health care. Fortunately, the Administration decided to seek the necessary funds in a supplemental appropriation, however Congress has not yet received their request. As a result, the Department of Veterans Affairs is short at least $300 million in the current fiscal year, and this demand-based shortfall must also be covered in the FY 2003 budget by adding an additional $300 million.

President Bush's request was too low for the veterans we already had and not many were talking about the new ones being created at the same time they were talking about budget shortfalls and not talking about it half as much as others in congress were talking tax cuts for the wealthy.

VA Announces Record Budget, Health Care Changes
January 17, 2003


WASHINGTON – Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi today announced a record increase in the budget for Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical care, the annual decision required by law (PL 104-262) on health care enrollment and a new plan between VA and the Department of Health and Human Services for a program that will allow eligible veterans to use their Medicare benefits for VA care.

The President's FY 2004 Budget includes a total of $63.6 billion for VA -- $30.2 billion in discretionary funding (mostly for health care) and $33.4 billion for VA-administered entitlement programs (mostly disability compensation and pensions). The budget includes $225 million in new construction funding for VA's nationwide infrastructure initiative (CARES) to ensure that VA can put services where veterans live.

"VA is maintaining its focus on the health care needs of its core group of veterans – those with service-connected disabilities, the indigent and those with special health care needs," Principi said.

"We're able to do so because of the generous budget proposed by President Bush for fiscal year 2004, beginning Oct. 1, 2003. It will be 7.7 percent more for health care than the expected FY 2003 budget. This would be the largest requested increase in VA history,' he said.

In order to ensure VA has capacity to care for veterans for whom our Nation has the greatest obligation – military-related disabilities, lower-income veterans or those needing specialized care like veterans who are blind or have spinal cord injuries -- Principi has suspended additional enrollments for veterans with the lowest statutory priority. This category includes veterans who are not being compensated for a military-related disability and who have higher incomes.

The suspension of enrollment affects only veterans in Priority Group 8, the lowest group in VA's eight-level system for setting health care priorities, who have not enrolled in VA's health care system by January 17. Priority Group 8 veterans already enrolled will be "grandfathered" and allowed to continue in VA's health care system.

Work is underway with the Department of Health and Human Services to determine how to give Priority Group 8 veterans aged 65 or older who cannot enroll in VA's health care system access to the "VA+Choice Medicare" plan. The plan calls for VA to participate as a Medicare+Choice provider. Eligible veterans would be able to use their Medicare benefits to obtain care from VA.

In return, VA would receive payments from a private health plan contracting with Medicare that would cover costs. The "VA+Choice Medicare" plan would become effective later this year as details are finalized between VA and the Department of Health and Human Services.

"HHS is happy to join the Department of Veterans Affairs in developing this new option for veterans who might otherwise be unable to obtain health care through the VA," said HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson. "This is a creative marriage of our federal health programs to serve our veterans efficiently and effectively."

VA has been unable to provide all enrolled veterans with timely access to health care services because of the tremendous growth in the number of veterans seeking VA health care. More than half of all new enrollees have been in Priority Group 8. This demand for VA health care is expected to continue in the future.

Between October 2001 and September 2002, VA enrolled 830,000 additional veterans. Since 1996, VA enrollment has increased from 2.9 million to 6.8 million today. Non-service disabled, higher income veterans accounted for the majority of the rapid enrollment growth, hindering the ability of VA to care for the service-disabled, the indigent and those with special needs. Even with the suspension of new enrollments for Priority Group 8 veterans, another 380,000 veterans in Priority Groups 1 through 7 are projected to enroll by the end of FY 2003.

"Last year, VA treated 1.4 million more veterans with 20,000 fewer employees than in 1996," said Principi. "Nonetheless, VA leads the nation in many important areas like patient safety, computerized patient records, telemedicine, rehabilitation and research. I not only want to see this standard continue, I intend to see it get even better."

Congress mandated in 1996 that VA establish an enrollment system to manage hospital and outpatient care within budgetary limits and to provide quality care to those enrolled. By law, the VA secretary must decide annually whether to maintain enrollment for all veterans.

"With this record budget increase, I expect access to medical facilities for severely disabled veterans to improve, along with a reduction in waiting times for all veterans,' Principi said.

But then there was a lot of talk about how Bush cut the VA Budget. Some said he didn't but when you factor in the rise of healthcare costs, the increased number of veterans along with everything else, this is how they hid the fact the budget was equal to an actual cut.
This is from Factcheck.org

In Bush’s first three years funding for the Veterans Administration increased 27%. And if Bush's 2005 budget is approved, funding for his full four-year term will amount to an increase of 37.6%.

In the eight years of the Clinton administration the increase was 31.7%

Those figures include mandatory spending for such things as payments to veterans for service-connected disabilities, over which Congress and presidents have little control. But Bush has increased the discretionary portion of veterans funding even more than the mandatory portion has increased. Discretionary funding under Bush is up 30.2%.

Clinton didn't have two wars going on creating more veterans needing to be taken care of.

Closing the "Shortfall" in
President Bush's 2009 VA Budget Report
AMVETS IS URGING CONGRESS TO CLOSE A THREE-BILLION-DOLLAR SHORTFALL IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S 2009 V-A BUDGET. ACCORDING TO "THE INDEPENDENT BUDGET"-
AMVETS IS URGING CONGRESS TO CLOSE A THREE-BILLION-DOLLAR SHORTFALL IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S 2009 V-A BUDGET. ACCORDING TO "THE INDEPENDENT BUDGET"--WHICH IS CO-AUTHORED BY AMVETS, DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS, PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA, AND VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS--THE ADMINISTRATION'S FUNDING RECOMMENDATIONS FALL SHORT IN FOUR VITAL AREAS: HEALTH CARE, MEDICAL AND PROSTHETICS RESEARCH, VETERANS BENEFITS, AND CONSTRUCTION PROGRAMS. AMVETS NATIONAL COMMANDER, J-P BROWN, THE THIRD, DISCUSSES THE IMPACT OF THE BUDGET SHORTFALL...

(BROWN):
"AS YOU KNOW, NOT ENOUGH MONEY FOR HEALTH-CARE SERVICES MEANS THAT FEWER SERVICES WILL BE AVAILABLE TO DEAL WITH TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY, POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER, VISUAL AND HEARING IMPAIRMENT, AND SPINAL-CORD INJURY. INADEQUATE FUNDING FOR RESEARCH MEANS THAT VETERANS WITH EITHER LOSS OF LIMBS OR SPINAL-CORD INJURIES MAY NOT REALIZE THE PROMISE OF MOBILITY, INDEPENDENCE, AND A BETTER QUALITY OF LIFE. A LACK OF INVESTMENT IN A BETTER AND FASTER CLAIMS SYSTEM MEANS THAT THE CURRENT BACKLOG OF 870-THOUSAND CLAIMS AND APPEALS WILL GROW EVEN BIGGER, AS OUR BRAVE HEROES RETURN FROM WAR. AND THE HUGE GAP IN CONSTRUCTION FUNDING MEANS THAT, FOR MANY VETERANS, SERVICES COULD BE OUT OF REACH. CONGRESS CANNOT FUND A WAR, WITHOUT ALSO PROVIDING FOR THE NEEDS OF THE WAR-FIGHTER; TELL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS TO FULLY IMPLEMENT 'THE INDEPENDENT BUDGET'."

No one wanted to pay for the veterans back then and they ended up paying the price for a lot of talk about "supporting the troops" and caring about our veterans. So now we have more waiting for the care they were promised, more ending up giving up hope of that help and more ending up homeless.

Orlando VA struggles to meet needs of rising tide of homeless vets

Pastor Scott Billue, who runs Matthew's Hope for the homeless in Winter Garden, applauds the effort. Since opening his ministry a year ago, he has helped some veterans reach out for help, including one who finally sought treatment for alcoholism after decades of drinking. But he also has buried a 50-year-old homeless Marine who lapsed into depression and hanged himself.

"Part of the problem is that the system is just overwhelmed," he said. "I realize our country's broke. But if you're going to send them over into harm's way, you'd better be prepared to take care of them when they come home."

By Kate Santich, Orlando Sentinel
March 13, 2011
Christopher O'Connor looks as if he just stepped out of a Marine Corps recruiting poster — the classic crew cut, the thickly muscled torso, the angular jaw — until the Orlando veteran rolls up his pants leg.

On his flesh are the distinctive circular scars of shrapnel wounds, welling up in spots where the metal is still lodged. On the eve of his 20th birthday, O'Connor was patrolling the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, when a remote-detonated IED exploded a few feet away. The blast left him with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder and a left leg damaged so badly it was nearly amputated.

By age 21, he was retired from the Marines, working as a car salesman and buying a town house in Kissimmee.

A year later, he was unemployed, drinking too much and homeless — part of a growing population of Central Florida veterans who drift from sofa to sofa or wind up in homeless shelters, on the streets or pitching a tent in the woods.

"When I got out, they gave me a retired ID, and they pretty much just said, 'Thanks for your service,' " O'Connor said recently. "And, actually, I don't know if they really said 'thanks.' I had no idea how seriously injured I was."

Florida has the second-largest population of homeless veterans in the nation, behind California. And though some areas of the country have been working on the issue for more than 20 years, in Orlando the Department of Veterans Affairs didn't begin addressing the problem until 2007. It's now trying to play catch-up.

As a consequence, from 2008 to 2010, the population of homeless veterans in Orange, Osceola and Seminole counties nearly doubled — to 1,250. Most live completely outside the system that might help them, avoiding shelters and unaided by housing programs or counseling from the VA. Three-quarters live on the streets, in abandoned buildings or cars or in camps.

More troublesome, some homeless advocates argue, is that they may be only the first wave of a flood of homeless veterans to come: soldiers from the War on Terror.

"It's going to get worse before it gets better," said Cathy Jackson, executive director of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida. "The period from military discharge to homelessness has accelerated dramatically. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that in the next three years there's going to be a surge in our numbers."
read more here
Orlando VA struggles to meet needs of rising tide of homeless vets

You can wish to think this nation cares about our troops and our veterans, but that care is limited to how much we demand the elected pay them back for putting their lives on the line instead of finding excuses for not doing it.