Groups want quicker OKs of VA health budgets

Groups want quicker OKs of VA health budgets

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Friday Aug 15, 2008 16:11:46 EDT

Hoping to avoid annual problems with veterans’ health care budgets that are too late and too small, a coalition of nine veterans groups proposes a radical change in how Congress funds Department of Veterans Affairs medical programs.

The Partnership for Veterans Health Care Budget Reform is trying to solve two problems.

One is that Congress is downright pokey in approving annual budgets. Only once in the last 14 years, and twice in the last 20 years, has the VA budget been approved by the start of the new fiscal year. The funding bill, known as appropriations, has been 3½ months late, on average, over the last six years.

A second and more serious problem is that the VA budget still isn’t large enough to eliminate waiting lists for medical appointments.

The veterans’ groups propose a two-part solution: They want a better method of calculating how much money is needed and they want advance appropriations.

If their plan was in effect now, Congress would be working on the veterans’ budget for fiscal 2010, which begins on Oct. 1, 2009.
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