[Vision2020] Care Cost Increases Force 'Hard Decisions'

[James Reynolds]

I have always admired the way Senator Craig stands up for the veterans. To 
me it seems reasonable to ask veterans that do not have military related 
health problems and have other means to cover their health care, to leave 
the funds for those veterans in greater need. Veterans have already vowed 
their lives to our country, now, with all the more seriously wounded coming 
back from Iraq, we should extend that vow to the support of those veterans 
worse off than ourselves.

I read an op-ed in the Times this morning about how more Nam vets are now 
signing up for long-term disability because of war related Post Traumatic 
Stress that appears in the 50-60 year age bracket... years after the stress. 
This is a program ripe for fraud or misuse and we vets should remind 
ourselves of the debt that we owe our country and the troops coming home 
wounded today. I have no doubts about the validity of this type of Stress 
syndrome and have seen it in myself, but we who have served have a higher 
cause and should try to lick our own psychic wounds if at all possible.

James




>From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
>To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
>Subject: [Vision2020] Care Cost Increases Force 'Hard Decisions'
>Date: Wed, 1 Mar 2006 05:49:26 -0800
>
> >From the March 6, 2006 edition of the Army Times -
>
>Support Senator Larry Craig and his fight against veteran health care 
>budget
>cuts.
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Care cost increases force 'hard decisions'
>Senators back Bush plan to raise fees, drug prices
>
>By Rick Maze
>Times staff writer
>
>In an early signal that the belt may tighten considerably on pay and
>benefits in the 2007 budget cycle, two influential Senate Republicans are
>warning veterans that there are limits to what the federal government can 
>be
>expected to provide.
>Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs
>Committee, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., chairman of the Senate Armed 
>Services
>personnel subcommittee, both endorsed steps by the Bush administration to
>pass a greater share of government health care costs onto some patients.
>
>In the Defense Department budget plan, the administration wants to raise
>Tricare enrollment fees and co-payments for military retirees under age 65.
>In the Department of Veterans Affairs budget, the Bush administration is
>asking - for a fourth time - for Congress to approve enrollment fees and
>raise prescription drug co-pays for veterans who have at least modest
>incomes and no service-connected medical conditions.
>
>"I find these proposals eminently reasonable," Craig said at a Feb. 16
>hearing. "If the president's proposals are not accepted, then we are forced
>to discuss options."
>
>Graham said retirees and veterans will be asked to make more sacrifices.
>
>"The nation owes you a lot, but I would argue that your need to serve the
>nation never stops," he said. "We are going to make some hard decisions."
>
>Among the ideas Graham said he was willing to consider, along with higher
>enrollment fees and co-pays, is shifting responsibility for retiree health
>care from the Defense Department to VA so the cost of caring for retirees
>does not compete with the cost of military equipment, readiness and
>active-duty personnel.
>
>Graham said he knows the idea is controversial. "I throw that out there to
>wake everybody up," he said. "We need to think big here. We need to serve
>people well, do away with duplication where possible, get the best bang for
>the taxpayer dollar and serve people."
>
>The alternative is to ask commanders down the road "to pick between bullets
>and planes and ships and health care," he said. "We need to take that
>pressure off the Department of Defense budget."
>
>Democrats have a different view. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., worries that
>increased health care fees and co-pays are "a step backward."
>
>"We should not balance the budget on the backs of those who have served 
>us,"
>she said.
>
>And Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said he does not see Congress buying the fee
>proposals.
>
>"Congress has rejected three years in a row the proposal for a new [VA]
>enrollment fee and the proposal to double prescription drug co-payments for
>Priority 7 and 8 veterans," he said. "So three years in a row we've said 
>no;
>I can't imagine I'm going to say yes this year."
>
>But Craig said spending must be reined in to avoid a budget crisis.
>
>"We cannot pretend the taxpayers' funding of programs that support our
>nation's veterans exists in a vacuum. It simply does not," he said.
>
>Craig predicted that veterans' programs "will collide with spending demands
>from all other areas of the government. Just as future liabilities for
>Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, if left unchanged, will crowd out
>our limited resources, so too will VA spending," he said.
>
>"If we duck it in '07, we will simply have it in our face in '08," Craig
>said. "I look forward to a serious discussion about these and other
>important issues" with other lawmakers, VA officials and veterans' groups.
>
>Craig said he is starting to think no amount of increase in the VA budget
>will satisfy everyone.
>
>After the Bush administration proposed a 10.3 percent one-year boost, Craig
>said he thought it "would unite Republicans, and Democrats, and, if not 
>all,
>most veterans' advocates" in support.
>
>"Boy, was I wrong," Craig said. "Since the budget numbers were released, I
>have listened to, I have read various comments which instead suggest that
>the president's request ignores the reality of the full costs of war, that
>it breaks faith with veterans who have returned from the battlefield, and,
>most remarkably, that this budget is somehow a cut in the care of our
>veterans."
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>Take care, Moscow.
>
>Tom Hansen
>Moscow, Idaho
>
>********************************************
>
>"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism"
>
>- Thomas Jefferson
>
>********************************************
>
>
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