The recent outpouring of support for our military men and women, punctuated in Everett by the emotional return from war of the USS Abraham Lincoln, was genuine.
Words of support on Capitol Hill, however, are ringing hollow.
The war in Iraq made more than 150,000 new service veterans eligible for federal health care. Given that the Department of Veterans Affairs already had seen its workload increase every year since 1996, the need for additional spending should seem obvious. To congressional budget writers, it isn’t.
On party-line votes, the House and Senate Budget Committees passed proposals that cut veterans benefits over the next 10 years by $28.3 billion and $6.4 billion, respectively. In order to make up for the cuts, both budgets depended on Bush Administration proposals that institute an enrollment fee of up to $1,500 for "higher income" veterans (higher income means $32,000 per year or more), block many less-disabled veterans from access to health care and raise the cost of prescription drug plans.
Fortunately, after public outcry from the other side of the aisle, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion and Disabled Veterans of America, a conference committee agreed on spending cuts that are not so drastic.
They still are spending cuts, though. Cuts that, for a program already struggling to meet the demands of our nation’s 25 million veterans, run too deep.
The VA manages 163 hospitals, 850 ambulatory care and community-based outpatient clinics, 137 nursing homes and 73 comprehensive home-care programs nationwide. As of January, 250,000 veterans were on a waiting list of six months or more for a first appointment. Cutting long-term spending at a time when the VA is struggling to meet current demands and when enrollment is bound to increase is not the answer to these problems.
The budget agreed upon by both chambers does raise appropriations for veterans by 3.4 percent for 2004, but that increases will hardly matches the VA’s expected growth rate of 7.9 percent per year.
Congress’ rhetoric doesn’t match its actions. Our nation’s veterans deserve real support.
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