FOR RELEASE: July 9, 2001

EVANS REQUESTS $2.25 BILLION INCREASE FOR
VETERANS’ HEALTH, OTHER PROGRAMS

Democratic Veterans’ Leader Backs Veterans Groups’ Budget

 Washington, DC -- Congressman Lane Evans (D-IL), senior Democratic member of the Committee on Veterans Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives, has urged a $2.25 billion increase in funding for veterans health and other so-called discretionary spending programs for fiscal year 2002.  Evans made his request to the leadership of the House subcommittee  that appropriates funds for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).   

Acknowledging the requested increase in funding for veterans health care and other programs was significant, Evans said the need for increased funding was also significant.  Evans’ request proposes the same amount for discretionary veterans programs as has been proposed by veterans groups including Veterans of Foreign Wars, Paralyzed Veterans of America, Disabled American Veterans, and AMVETS for fiscal year 2002 which begins October 1, 2001..  Evans’ request does adjust the veterans’ recommendation for the receipts from insurance and veterans’ copayments VA is allowed to collect and keep.   

Evans’ letter requesting the $2.25 billion funding increase expressed concerns about the ability of VA to provide quality and timely health care for veterans. , “Mr. Chairman, as you know, I have been concerned that even with additional funds VA has realized in recent years, the Department has scarcely been able to maintain a current services level, let alone implement some important changes Congress has mandated,” Evans said. 

          The Evans’ letter cited increased funding needs for:

Ø     Implementation of a provision in the Veterans Millennium Health Care and Benefits Act that will allow uninsured veterans to have the same access to emergency care as many Americans would have under various “Patient Bill of Rights” proposals. 

Ø     Providing long-term care to meet aging veterans’ increasing needs for services.

Ø     Restoring capacity in programs for veterans with special disabilities such as spinal cord injury, blindness, and serious mental illness. 

Ø     An “emergency fund” to allow some expedient major capital investment projects to improve aging infrastructure (a measure that has been approved, but not funded by the House).

Ø     Other fiscal challenges the Department will face in the near future, such as impending clinical staff shortages and the rising cost of fuel plaguing areas around the country. 

Evans proposal would add more than $1 billion to the Bush Administration budget proposal for veterans.  The $1 billion increase in funding for veterans health care and other programs proposed by Bush has received sharp criticism. 

John F. Gwizdak, Commander-in-Chief, Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, has stated:  
Discretionary dollars are essential in enabling the Department to properly and compassionately provide earned benefits and services to this nation’s defenders in their time of need.  Along with providing for veterans’ health care, this funding covers the cost of everything from employee salaries, to the adjudication of VA benefit claims, to needed construction and renovation projects to the acquisition of modern computer and information technology. 

In the event VA were only to receive a $1 billion increase, it would be completely consumed by such things as inflation and salary increases that we project to be $1.2 billion in FY 2002 alone.  

The $1 billion increase in discretionary funding now proposed by Congress falls woefully short of allowing VA to meet our national obligation to ‘care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan.   

Similarly, Ray G. Smith, National Commander, The American Legion, has said:  
The Bush administration’s FY 2002 budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs is also troubling.  Aside from being $400 million short of The American Legion’s health care recommendation for next fiscal year, the spending plan would shift $235 million from VA health care to DoD health care.  In other words, the fund that treats veterans who are poor or who suffer from disabilities related to their military service would be drained based on an “estimate” – an assumption – that 65,000 military retires on Tricare who currently use the VA will instead seek treatment in private facilities.  That’s the same Tricare benefit that is such a rousing success in the Pacific Northwest.  And about that $235 million?  It was not DoD’s money before those 65,000 Tricare recipients sought access to VA health care, and it should not be DoD’s money now. 

Unfortunately, the proposed draining of the VA budget is the tip of the iceburg. The Bush blueprint would unjustifiably cut 2,200 full-time VA personnel. VA’s work force is already so undersized that wards are closed and veterans with service-connected disabilities wait weeks, sometimes months, to receive a medical appointment.  Further, a claim for benefits can take months, even years, to be processed due to a shortage of claims handlers.

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