[Vision2020] Care Cost Increases Force 'Hard Decisions'

[Art Deco]

It is difficult for me to think of as ethical asking persons who serve their 
country on our behalf and at out behest to also be burdened with the health 
costs which that service has entailed.

W.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
To: "Moscow Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 5:49 AM
Subject: [Vision2020] Care Cost Increases Force 'Hard Decisions'


> >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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