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This is a longer read - but a very timely one. I have underlined and bolded items that seem especially timely. They (bushco) knew and they have been intentnionally underfunding since the beginning (have to have money for tax cuts, and have to have money for inflated crony contractors, you know...) This is a disgrace.
I hope that some in the media go back to the congressional battle in 2005 per VA funding. It rather sheds some light onto the current situation.
another press release,:
Remarks of Representative Lane Evans
Ranking Democratic Member
House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
Press Conference on VA Budget Shortfall
June 30, 2005
Last week, Secretary of Veterans Affairs Nicholson acknowledged that the VA has at least a $1 billion shortfall this year in veterans' health care. Previously, Secretary Nicholson has strongly opposed providing VA with needed dollars because he claimed that the Administration's budget was adequate to do the job. Just ten weeks ago, he told Congress that VA was not in a dire emergency and did not need any supplemental funding for FY 2005. In fact, the Secretary claimed that any funding problem could be solved by VA's "own management decision capability." A $1 billion shortfall (now known to be much greater) in veterans' medical care is dire during times of peace; while we are at war it is unconscionable.
Shortly, we will have another opportunity to hear from the Secretary as to how this happened, what the Administration plans to recommend, and how it plans to prevent this from happening in the future. Based on his testimony from earlier in the week, VA still is not facing up to the full extent of the problem. The Secretary has claimed that the quality of veterans’ health care is not being adversely affected. He is badly mistaken.
This “revelation” of a shortfall comes as no surprise to those of us who have fought, cajoled, pleaded, and harangued to make our point over the past several years that VA health care is being inadequately funded. We believe the facts show that while an additional $1 billion might tide the department over until the end of the current fiscal year, it is not even half of what is actually needed to cover shortfalls in VA’s health care system over the next 15 months.
VA, when pressed, admitted this week that its shortfall for fiscal ’06 is essentially $2.7 billion.
The callousness toward veterans’ well-being by those obstructionists in the Administration and the Congress who have steadfastly opposed immediate or any other remedial action – some are now claiming to see the light -- in this matter continues to astound me. They had to wait on VA belatedly confessing to a bad actuarial forecast to get the point? What more do you need as proof of a dire situation? (see attached snapshot of shortfall impact)
-- Hundreds of thousands of veterans are being told they cannot enroll in VA health care. When the current administration decided to ban new Priority 8 veterans from enrolling in January 2003, it estimated that by FY 2005 the number of affected veterans would be 522,000. Rather than request additional funds, the Administration has decided to continue to shut its doors to these veterans; (see attached table)
-- When more than 50,000 (and rising) veterans are waiting for a health care appointment;
-- When those who are enrolled are being told by many veterans’ hospitals they cannot have appointments (see attached letter);
-- When clinical positions across the system are not being filled;
-- When VA hospitals are having to defer purchases of critical medical equipment;
-- When VA is putting scaffolding and netting up at a Maine veterans’ hospital to keep veterans from being hit by falling bricks because funds for building repairs have been diverted to cover the shortfall;
-- When a veterans’ hospital in Vermont is short a half-million dollars in funding for prosthetic devices (e.g., hip replacements, knees, mesh stents), so crucial to returning war veterans;
-- When health care professionals at veterans’ hospitals are reporting shortages of medical supplies; and,
-- In the context of these shortcomings, when the number of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans being treated at the VA is expected to rise dramatically;
How else can you define the situation as anything but an emergency?
Yet with this information out in the light, and the Administration’s own admission that it got it wrong, some still cannot or will not bring themselves to do the right thing. Several times this week, measures that would have covered $1 billion of the shortfall in veterans’ health care for FY 2005 were crushed on party line votes. Further, the Republican majority refused to put a dime into veterans’ health care when the Congress voted for $82 billion as emergency spending for the war, despite the fact that both anecdotal and systemic problems in VA health care were already documented and highlighted. What these and other equally dismissive actions reveal is that some not only haven’t accepted the problem, but also haven’t accepted that taking care of veterans is very much a part of the continuing cost of war.
I have to wonder what it's going to take for this Administration to wake up and do what's right. The VA, when fully funded, provides world class care. The repeated refusals of the White House and the Republican leadership in this Congress to correct the long-known budget shortfall has pushed the delivery of veterans' health care to the brink.
What still needs to be discussed is that even the shortfall has a shortfall. VA claims the additional resources relative to the President’s budget that are necessary to provide timely, high quality care to veterans in fiscal 2006 amount to approximately $1.5 billion. In the Department’s estimation, this includes $375 million to repay the carryover money that VA has raided; nearly $700 million for increased workload; and $446 million for an error in estimating long-term care costs. VA says it will come forward to the Congress with a proposal to provide the additional resources. However, this amount assumes enactment of the legislative proposals in the President’s budget which the Congress has already, and repeatedly, soundly rejected.
The Administration has attempted to fix VA’s budget shortcomings by increasing the burden on veterans themselves with increased copayments and new user fees. Its latest budget request would have gutted long-term care programs, just as we are reaching the peak of health care requirements of an older veteran population. According to VA’s own estimates, these proposals would add up to $1.1 billion.
Further, the Administration’s shortfall claims do not take into account the phantom $950 million in “management efficiency” savings which VA is unable to prove.
In his prepared testimony before other committees this week, VA Secretary Nicholson himself asked what I believe is the key question: “. . . what can we do to improve the budget formulation process and the current budget status?”
H.R. 515 would create assured funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs health care system based on the number of veterans it serves and the medical inflation rate for hospitals. This landmark legislation would help avoid budget shortfalls and provide real resources to meet real needs.
The President's own Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation's Veterans found that: "...the only effective way to address the growing problem of access in VA is to reduce the mismatch ." One solution proffered by the task force to address the "mismatch" was mandatory funding for VA health care. H.R. 515 would implement this recommendation.
Nine major veterans' service organizations, represented here today and who comprise the Partnership for Veterans Health Care Budget Reform, have identified assured funding for the veterans health care system as one of their top legislative priorities.
We must ensure the operation of a robust medical system for the nation's veterans in a time of war. VA officials have reported that one in four veterans returning home from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom has sought health care from the VA. Many thousands more veterans returning home will rely upon the VA for treatment of their combat injuries and the provision of post-deployment mental health care. VA must be ready to meet the needs of our newest veterans and continue to care for veterans who have served our nation in the past.
H.R. 515 can fix the long-term problem. Here and now – before this body adjourns for the July 4 recess – we must make up the ‘05 shortfall. Contrary to Administration assertions, it is an emergency.
I and all of my Democratic colleagues in the House, as well as the lone Independent Member, have sent a letter to the President requesting that he submit a FY 2005 supplemental funding request adding at least $1.3 billion to address the shortfall in veterans’ health care funding. In our estimation, the Administration’s FY 2005 VA budget request was short $2.5 billion. While Congress added $1.2 billion, VA’s budget remained $1.3 billion short. It appears the VA is now closely aligned with our original estimate. In addition, we have requested that the President submit an amended budget to account for the significant veterans’ health care shortfall that is now evident in his 2006 budget request.
As we state in the letter: “At a time of war, funding for veterans must be made a clear and unmistakable priority.” Frankly, that applies at all times.
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