Bush’s budget for vets draws fire

WASHINGTON – Key Northwest lawmakers criticized President Bush’s spending plan for veterans Tuesday, saying it doesn’t provide enough money for medical care and veterans homes.

The budget would require some veterans to pay an annual fee of $250 for health care, would raise their co-payments for prescription drugs, and would cut nearly $300 million in funding for state veterans homes.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said he is concerned about potential cuts in health care, but would consider a proposal to charge drug co-payments and health-care fees.

Craig, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, signaled he might support a $250 annual fee for veterans who are eligible for VA medical treatment but don’t have service-related disabilities and earn $25,000 or more. Congress has twice rejected that idea.

“Isn’t a $250-a-year fee by far the cheapest access to the finest health care system in the world?” Craig asked at one point in the hearing.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., along with other Democrats on the committee, pronounced the proposed fee “dead on arrival” and predicted it would not pass Congress.

“These veterans have already paid the price” by serving in the military, Murray said. “We shouldn’t be asking them to do it again.”

This same group of veterans would also face an increase in drug co-payments from $7 to $15, a proposal Craig indicated he might also support. The Bush administration estimates that the co-payment and enrollment fee increase would generate $424 million in revenue.

While Craig took a cautious approach to analyzing the $70.8 billion budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Murray pressed newly confirmed VA Secretary Jim Nicholson to point out deficiencies in the budget.

Nicholson called the proposal “a matrix” with many complexities, but refused to identify any weaknesses.

“It’s a tight budget, and people are going to have to operate that way,” he said. “It is going to be challenging to make that transition, but it is doable.”

One way the budget proposes that the VA save money is to revise the eligibility requirements for long-term care services at veterans’ homes. It would cut $293 million that now goes to state veterans’ homes.

Under the new guidelines, the VA for the first time would have to decide which disabilities or injuries are eligible for long-term care at VA, community and state nursing facilities.

Those injured or disabled while on active duty would not be turned away, nor would those catastrophically disabled or requiring hospice care.

Tina Basel, a policy adviser at Idaho State Veterans Services, said most of the veterans who require long-term treatment have disabilities that are somewhere in between. The VA currently pays states $59.36 a day per patient for skilled nursing care, she said. Without that payment, millions would be without care nationwide.

“There is a huge concern at state veterans homes,” Basel said.

Washington received $9.8 million from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs last year to help operate three homes, including the Spokane Veterans Home. The eligibility requirements could affect thousands of Washington veterans, including the 122,000 from World War II.

“The initial proposal would make significant changes in eligibility requirements resulting in a reduction in funding for the care of veterans in state veterans homes,” said John King, director of the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs in a statement, adding that he hopes to work with the federal VA to develop alternative approaches.

The proposed change in long-term treatment is part of the Bush administration’s broader plan to shift care from institutional to non-institutional settings. One VA official told senators that shift is “the wave of the future.”

Nicholson said the budget would save the VA $590 million by consolidating its operations and making them more efficient.

Murray will continue her battle with the administration over veterans funding today, during a hearing on Bush’s proposed $82 billion for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said in an interview that budget has “not one dime for veterans” and will offer an amendment seeking $2 billion to cover veterans’ care.

“We have 4,000 National Guard and reserve folks coming home (to Washington state) in a few short weeks, “Murray said. “At a minimum 20 percent of them will need post-traumatic stress syndrome help of some kind … We need to make sure they get the support they need because it will impact them, their families, their employers and their communities.”

As the VA budget stands now, she said, “We don’t have the ability to take care of them.”