Obama VA Budget plan includes 5.3 percent hike for mental health and health care

VA funds to surge as troops return
Budget plan includes 5.3 percent hike for mental health and health care.
By Barrie Barber, Staff Writer
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
The nation’s 22 million military veterans would receive more federal funding for health care, fighting homelessness and finding jobs under President Barack Obama’s proposed budget for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The plan calls for VA spending to grow 10.5 percent to $140.3 billion in the next fiscal year, up from $126.9 billion this fiscal year. The proposal comes as other segments of the military prepare for big cuts.

The White House wants to spend more on mental health services, health care needs of women veterans, and $1 billion over five years on a Veterans Jobs Corps to put 20,000 former soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to work.

The jobs would focus on building roads and trails on public lands.

The budget places a priority on medical research in traumatic brain injury, post traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and suicide prevention. It also designates $1.4 billion, a 33 percent increase, to battle homelessness among veterans, and more money on vocational rehabilitation and employment for wounded or ill service members transitioning to the civilian work force.
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