– Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), member, Veterans Affairs
Ranking minority member Daniel Akaka (D-Hi.) joined seven colleagues — including Sen. Larry Craig (R-Ida.), Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs and Sen. Murray — in response to “the recent admission by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), that it is at least $1 billion short on health care funding.”
The “VA has raided its emergency and construction accounts for next year,” states Sen. Akaka, “to make up for this year’s deficits, in order to try and keep pace with demand.”
Sen. Murray accuses the Administration and Dept. of Veterans Affairs of “either deliberate misdirection or gross incompetence.”
: : : more below : : :
The U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs issued this press release today, along with an official press announcement by seven members of the committee [PHOTO BELOW]:
PHOTO: U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, chairman, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, June 23, 2005. Looking on from right are: Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash.; Ken Salazar, D-Colo.; and John Rockefeller, D-W.Va. Man at left is unidentified. (AP Photo/Yuri Gripas)
_________________
Craig Says VA Needs More Than One Billion More Than Projected for 2006
(Washington, DC) U.S. Senator Larry Craig, Chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, reacted quickly today after learning that a mid-year review of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ budget revealed that the agency will need another billion dollars for 2006. Craig said the committee will hold a hearing on this next week.
“I was on the phone this morning with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Jim Nicholson letting him know that I am not pleased that this has happened. I am certain that he is going to take serious steps to ensure that this type of episode is not repeated,” said Craig, who less than two months ago fought for and won an additional $410 million over the Department’s budget request for medical care, bringing the yearly increase to $1.2 billion.
“I have met with members of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs committee and other Senate leaders about this situation. None of us are happy that this happened,” Craig said.
According to senior VA finance officials, the VA is now meeting the health care needs of veterans by using approximately $600 million originally budgeted for capital infrastructure projects and drawing on approximately $400 million that was originally budgeted for carry-over into next year’s budget.
“When I made the argument for the additional funding, I was assured by the Department that the $410 million in additional money was sufficient to meet the needs of veterans. To find out so soon afterward that I was supplied with inaccurate or dated information is extremely frustrating,” Craig said.
“The first thing for veterans to know is that they will continue to receive the same high quality care that they have been receiving. Secondly, we in Congress must fix this financial problem and I am confident that my colleagues and I will be able to do that. Finally, I will bring the VA in to explain why this happened, and work to ensure that this situation does not happen again.”
“The Chairman noted that the news has come just in the nick of time,” states the press release.
“The House has already passed its VA appropriations bill, which leaves the Senate as the only forum to have the debate on how to address this problem,” Craig said.
With a budget of approximately $70 billion, the $1 billion shortfall represents an error rate of approximately 1.5 percent.
So much for taking care of business. Not to mention taking care of the veterans, Mr. Bush and Chickenhawks Rove and Cheney.
Sen. Murray stated that today she “introduced legislation to provide emergency supplemental funding for the VA”:
I urge the Administration to submit a supplemental request and fulfill the promise to our nation’s veterans.
In a statement today, AMVETS.org said, “Finally, somebody listened to us.”
Boettcher said the revelation doesn’t surprise him. “We already had been told by some VA officials that their equipment and maintenance accounts were being raided to replenish depleted healthcare accounts.” The AMVETS leader also cited news reports on VA facilities in Georgia, Colorado, Maine, Michigan and Pennsylvania that “provide clear evidence that VA is straining and failing to make ends meet.”
“I don’t want to say, ‘I told you so,’ but we feel vindicated, in a way,” said Boettcher, explaining that the veterans community has contended for years that VA was underfunded. …
Cross-posted at DailyKos
posted this on Kos … he worked on Murray’s campaign last year.
Check out the timeline of Senator Murray’s work to fund the VA (and the Republican’s obstructionism) at this link.
Choice bits:
3/16/05 – Murray amendment is defeated 47-53
“Today, members of the U.S. Senate had a choice. They could choose to keep the promise to our nation’s veterans and make them a priority in this budget, or they could turn their backs. I am disappointed to say that the majority party made the wrong choice,” Senator Murray said.
4/12/05 – Murray offers floor amendment to Emergency Supplemental
“I am very concerned that when all of these new veterans come home and need medical care they’re going to be pushed into a VA system that doesn’t have the medical staff, facilities, or funding to take care of them.
There is a train wreck coming in veterans’ healthcare, and I’m offering an amendment to deal with this emergency now – before it turns into a crisis.”
Administration, Republicans say Senate funding is unnecessary
“Whenever trends indicate the need for refocusing priorities, VA’s leaders ensure prudent use of reserve funding for these purposes. That is just simply part of good management…I can assure you that VA does not need emergency supplemental funds in FY2005 to continue to provide the timely, quality service that is always our goal…but certainly for the remainder of this year, I do not foresee any challenges that are not solvable within our own management decision capability.”
– Letter from VA Sec. Nicholson to Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (used on the floor of the Senate by Republicans to bolster their argument)
4/12/05 – Murray amendment is defeated- twice 54-46
“First Senate Republicans said that funding for veterans’ healthcare was not an emergency. Then they said it was not a priority. Our veterans, our military and our future recruits deserve better. We send these brave men and women overseas to fight for us. They should not have to fight for the healthcare they’ve earned when they return home.”
Throw the woman some turkee, or contact her office to say thanks!
FYI: I couldn’t find a news story on this. CNN mentioned the budget problem but had no story up at the time. It was too new, so I hunted around the U.S. Senate Web sites which, fortunately, had several statements up.
The committee’s Web page had a press release, as did Sens. Murray and Akaka. Good work by them and their staffers.
When will we stinking Liberals ever learn that the Vets don’t want or need financial support NOR do they need to have the citizens’ protection by being watchdogs, and to ensure that they aren’t being put in harms way for an agenda of a Bush Regime
… they just want to know that we all stuck a fucking magnet on the ass end of our cars.
((((Susan)))) You Rock’n Roll!
Thx. Don’t we have the greatest Senators in WA state?! Patty Murray is constantly working on veterans issues. It’s one of her “things.” And Maria’s been rockin’ the Senate with her amendments.
Bush, during the October 3rd 2000 presidential debate:
Oops!
Thanks so much for posting this. Below is a comment I posted in a previous diary, in response to a young person who believed that Iraqi veterans were being treated better than Vietnam veterans:
I’m sorry to say, however, that I must disagree with you concerning the treatment of returning veterans. Yes, the public, by and large, were respectful to returning soldiers (the myth of anti-war protesters spitting on returning soldiers from Vietnam is just that — a myth; I never met or heard of ANY soldier that that happened to), but respect is a whole lot more than a pat on the back, a yellow ribbon decal on the car, and a “welcome home”. It’s what people DO that counts.
The sad reality of fighting in a war is that many, if not most of those who survive return home with substantial problems. For some, those problems are physical — traumatic, life-altering wounds that will never heal, that will require ongoing treatment for a lifetime. In Vietnam, the life-saving procedures of getting severely wounded men from the front line to the operating room were perfected, and have been reimplemented in Iraq. Lives are saved, but men (and now women) who would have died on the battlefield in previous wars, are given the “opportunity” to live armless, legless, sightless, brainless lives. Such lives are a blessing, I suppoose, considering the alternative, but they cost money. Who will pay? Sure, we’ll all raise our hands now, and demand proper treatment for the returning wounded, but what about ten or twenty years from now, when the war, hopefully, is a distant, painful memory, and the economy is in the tank (given the Bushco economic policies, that seems a reasonable conclusion), and there is real competition for where the federal dollars will be spent? What will happen then, to the invisible, powerless refuse from the long-forgotten war?
And then there’s the other “problems”: the PTSD, the lost jobs, failed marriages, broken lives. As`they say, all wounds do not pierce the skin. There was a point in the seventies and eighties when twenty percent of the prison population in the US were Vietnam veterans. Respect? It’s my experience that when a vet becomes percieved to become a problem, people don’t give a flyin flock about his (or her) service. Whe Iraqi veterans start becoming a “burden” on the community, I’m afraid the “respect” of their neighbors will disappear.
Every benefit that Vietnam veterans got, were not given to us; we had to fight for them. The men and women in today’s army, by and large, come from lower socio-economic groups. As a rule, in our political system that does the bidding of those with the bucks, such people will be cut out of the pie when the time comes.
Respect? Sorry, the sad recent history of our country is that veterans get the shaft. And I’m afraid that Iraqi veterans are gonna get it worse than any.
You have so much to say. Please write more diaries.
During the flush years of the Clinton administration, the VA’s health facilities were opened to all veterans, with few exceptions. Previously, there had been a means test, such that wealthy vets couldn’t use VA health services unless they had service-related health problems (not necessarily begun during actual service.)
When the health crisis rose up so quickly with the Bush recession, more and more vets turned to the VA, particularly given the out of control costs of meds.
Then the war. More seriously wounded men and women proportionately than any any other war. More mental health problems. Modern medicine saves lives that in other wars were lost. The lives saved are good, but the quality of care is not going to continue with these future cuts.
These soldiers and ex-soldiers are out of sight and out of mind, and that’s just where this administration wants them. So their services can be cut, cut, and cut again. And unequally offered to families of regular military versus families of soldiers in the guard.
This is one of those many damnable things that runs just beyond the horizon. It is hardly “video of the day” matter for local TV.
And of course, ending those terrible “death taxes” and making permanent the huge tax breaks for the extremely wealthy, are more important than anything else our government could do with the money.