Bush Budget Raises Prescription Prices For Many Veterans

[Ed Palmer]

Bush Budget Raises Prescription Prices For Many Veterans <br />
New York Times - Free Registration Required (Washington FEB. 07) <br />
<br />
President Bush's budget would more than double the co payment charged to...

[Ed Palmer]

President Proposes Raise to Vet Prescription Prices <br />
<br />
According to administration officials, President Bush's FY2006 budget proposal plans to increase health charges to veterans. The president's...

[Ed Palmer]

Three years ago it was $2.00 then it went to $7.00 now the SOB,s want $15.00 for a 30 day supply of meds thoese axxholes get all of their med,s and treatment free for life and some have NEVER spent any time
in a war zone other than to visit for like a hour or 2 .

Contact your public officials now. Your voice matters!

Or so they say spending time in the Military is getting to the point
of its fuxking your going to get for the FUXKING you already got.


And you noticed that it our C,I.C thats wanting to do it to US

[hrscowboy]

I wondered when we were going to finally see when the CIC was going to try something with the veterans of this country and now we will see his real stripes. WTF why should any veteran of this...

[ivalis]

ya gets what ya voted for.

[hrscowboy]

No ivalis thats the way its been for years the Veteran has always had to take the back seat on benifits it didnt matter what president was in office..

[yellowwing]

As of now, the government does not have an estimate of how many veterans would be affected by the proposal.

Bullsh*t, then where did they come up with the $250 fee? Responsible and realistic accounting is not 'pick a number, any number'!

[Ed Palmer]

HERE READ THIS FROM RUSH LIMBAUGH

heres your tax dollars at work and hell yes I am Pixxed

Love him or loathe him, he nailed this one right on the head.............

By Rush Limbaugh:

I think the vast differences in compensation between victims of the September 11 casualty and those who die serving our country in Uniform are profound. No one is really talking about it either, because you just don't criticize anything having to do with September 11. Well, I can't let the numbers pass by because it says something really disturbing about the
entitlement mentality of this country. If you lost a family member in the September 11 attack, you're going to get an average of $1,185,000. The range is a minimum guarantee of $250,000, all the way up to $4.7 million.


If you are a surviving family member of an American soldier killed in action, the first check you get is a $6,000 direct death benefit, half of which is taxable.

Next, you get $1,750 for burial costs. If you are the surviving spouse, you get $833 a month until you remarry. And there's a payment of $211 per month for each child under 18. When the child hits 18, those payments come to a screeching halt.

Keep in mind that some of the people who are getting an average of $1.185 million up to $4.7 million are complaining that it's not enough. Their deaths were tragic, but for most, they were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Soldiers put themselves in harms way FOR ALL OF US, and they and their families know the dangers.

We also learned over the weekend that some of the victims from the



Oklahoma City bombing have started an organization asking for the same deal that the September 11 families are getting. In addition to that, some of the families of those bombed in the embassies are now asking for compensation as well.

You see where this is going, don't you? Folks, this is part and parcel of over 50 years of entitlement politics in this country. It's just really sad. Every time a pay raise comes up for the military, they usually receive next to nothing of a raise. Now the green machine is in combat in the Middle East while their families have to survive on food stamps and live in low-rent housing. Make sense?

However, our own U.S. Congress voted themselves a raise. Many of you don't know that they only have to be in Congress one time to receive a pension that is more than $15,000 per month. And most are now equal to being millionaires plus. They do not receive Social Security on retirement because they didn't have to pay into the system.

If some of the military people stay in for 20 years and get out as an E-7, they may receive a pension of $1,000 per month, and the very people who placed them in harm's way receives a pension of $15,000 per month.

I would like to see our elected officials pick up a weapon and join ranks before they start cutting out benefits and lowering pay for our sons and daughters who are now fighting.

"When do we finally do something about this?" If this doesn't seem fair to you, it is time to forward this to as many people as you can.


How many people can YOU send this to ?

Amen.

[hrscowboy]

yep old rush did hit it right on...

[Sgted]

SOCIAL SECURITY:
(This is worth reading. It is short and to the point.)

Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.

Our Senators and Congresswomen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.
You see, Social Security benefits were not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They felt they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan .

In more recent years, no congressperson has felt the need to change it. After all, it is a great plan.
For all practical purposes their plan works like this:
When they retire, they continue to draw the same pay until they die.

Except it may increase from time to time for cost of living adjustments..
This is calculated on an average life span for each of those two Dignitaries. For example, Senator Byrd and Congressman White and their wives may expect to draw $7,800,000.00 (that's Seven Million, Eight-Hundred Thousand Dollars), with their wives drawing $275,000.00 during the last years of their lives.

Younger Dignitaries who retire at an early age, will receive much more during the rest of their lives.
Their cost for this excellent plan is $0.00. NADA....ZILCH....
This little perk they voted for themselves is free to them. You and I pick up the tab for this plan. The funds for this fine retirement plan come directly from the General Funds;
"OUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK"!
From our own Social Security Plan, which you and I pay (or have paid) into,-every payday until we retire (which amount is matched by our employer)-we can expect to get an average of $1,000 per month after retirement.
Or, in other words, we would have to collect our average of $1,000 monthly benefits for 68 years and one (1) month to equal Senator Bill Bradley's benefits!
Social Security could be very good if only one small change were made.

That change would be to:

Jerk the Golden Fleece Retirement Plan from under the Senators and Congressmen. Put them into the Social Security plan with the rest of us ..
then sit back.....
and watch how fast they would fix it.

==============================================

The situations posted in this thread are very sad indeed.
You think it will change ???
Think again.

[jo1753]

Sgted............you said a mouth full...!!!

Boy I sure hope some young people who are trying to decide..Gee should I go into the military or not read this about hiking our co-pays on the meds we get.

Like a few others have already said..........We as Veterans have already paid for this. And now they want us to pay again.? Sorta makes me feel all warm all over..........oops no wait I think my water-pill just kicked-in....LOL......BRB......see ya

[Ed Palmer]

Like I always say it,s the FUCXKING YOU GET FOR THE FUCXKING YOU GOT
Damnn I just love the way they screw U- S- A- nd get away with it

[Ed Palmer]

+ Political Joke
Yesterday evening I went upstairs to find my wife flipping through the
channels, hoping to catch a rerun of "The West Wing". I asked,
rhetorically, "Anything on tonight?"

"Nah," she said, flipping. "just the State of the Union Address. But I'd
rather watch the fake president than the real one."

[hrscowboy]

Oh Damnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

[Ed Palmer]

Here,s an update Just in: <br />
<br />
Gee can you beleive that the Democrates are auctualy on our side for a change <br />
<br />
According to administration officials, President Bush's FY2006 budget proposal plans to...

[ivalis]

If it wasn't for the bloody liberal Democrats we wouldn't have (with all its warts) the present VA system. Go figure.

[HardJedi]

Originally posted by ivalis
If it wasn't for the bloody liberal Democrats we wouldn't have (with all its warts) the present VA system. Go figure.


yeah, and what a CRYING shame THAT would be. Only thing more wothless to ME personally than the current VA is boobs on a man.

[AshleyMS]

To anyone who gets VA compensation checks, if you are wanting to get your % increased then you need to do so this year. Went to the VA today only to find out from a friend that Bush will be stopping the increases in % as of Jan 2006! If you want/need to try to get your % raised then you need to do so this year because Bush will be putting a freeze on that! Just figured I would share the information with everyone! Semper Fi

[jo1753]

This will never happen....But this country will never change it's ways till the middle class get elected into offices now held by the upper crust in our society............How can one ever stress to someone else how hard it is to pay monthly bills, pay for meds, food, insurance just to name a few. When we're speaking to people who are now in office that in most cases, never had to face such problems...!!!

These people think they're doing all of us a great big favor when they give us pennys back with one hand,and take dollars away with the other...!!!

S*IT like this makes me so proud that I did my DUTY years ago. Just knowing that Uncle Sam will never renig on his promise to us when we were released from active service....GO FIGURE...Semper-Fi

[GunnyL]

Give any party too much power and the military gets hosed. When the Republican's are in charge it's good to be on active duty and it sucks to be a veteran. When the Democrat's are in charge, it's...

[Ed Palmer]

OK all of you Vet,s you know the drill drop your drawers bend over an grab your ankles

Plans For Vet Care Disappointing
Cox News Service
February 15, 2005

WACO, Texas - If proposed federal Department of Veterans Affairs budgets fail to make you happy, then you may not jump for joy over the 2006 version.

Plans to double prescription copayments and impose enrollment fees for certain veterans are back again as part of the new budget submitted by President Bush. And while the budget calls for $33.4 billion in discretionary funding that is mostly for health care, it also proposes slashing millions for nursing home care needed by an aging veterans population.

These total discretionary funds proposed are an increase of 2.7 percent more than this year's levels, according to the VA. The department also points out that with this plan the VA will have increased veterans medical funding by 47 percent since Bush took office in 2001.

But veterans advocates say the VA health-care budget is habitually underfunded and that what they see as a miserly increase would be paid for out of the veterans' pocket.

"This budget proposal is bad news for the nation's veterans, made even more distressing in light of the war in Iraq and military operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere," said James E. Sursely, the national Disabled American Veterans commander, in a news release.





Former military members who have no service-connected illness or injury and whose incomes are above a certain threshold would pay a $250 enrollment fee annually for VA health care. Prescription copayments for a 30-day supply of medicine would increase from $7 to $15 for those veterans.

Affected would be those folks who are sometimes portrayed as "wealthy" veterans. But that is far from the stuff of champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

Area-specific income levels determining federal housing program eligibility are what the VA uses to determine who pays a copayment for drugs. Where I live, this is $26,200 for a single person and $37,450 for a family of four. Such income levels are may be useful in deciding who gets what federal dollars. But people with such incomes are hardly rolling in dough.

"It's not a lot of money to live on. But it is a cutoff for a lot of programs," said Michael Morris, an economics professor at the University of New Orleans.

VA officials say the hike in prescription copayments and the user fees from higher-income veterans would help treat 100,000 more patients under the 2006 budget than in the current fiscal year.

"We expect those two revenue proposals - user fee and increased copay for outpatient prescriptions _ will generate $424 million which we will plow back into the medical-care program to extend the reach of our health-care services to more veterans in the high-priority categories: service-connected veterans and veterans of modest means," said Terry Jemison, a VA spokesman at the department's Washington headquarters, in a reply by e-mail to questions I posed.

Jemison emphasized that these proposals only pertain to the two lowest of the eight priority groups the VA uses in apportioning health care to veterans.

Let Your Voice Be Heard!
Do you agree with the actions of your representatives? Let them know how you feel -- your voice matters! Visit our Legislative Center for the latest action alerts or contact your representatives NOW!


Such proposals to help fund VA health care have been tried before, only to fail in Congress. But it is a new budget and a new day in Washington, so your guess is as good - or probably better - than mine as to what funding for veterans programs will ultimately look like.

Susan Edgerton says that perhaps more alarming than the fee and copayment plans are the proposed cuts in nursing home care for veterans. Edgerton is staff director for the Democratic side of the House Veterans Affairs Health Subcommittee.

Funding for such programs under the Bush budget would be cut by $351 million. Budget figures indicate 28,851 fewer patients would be treated in VA-operated nursing homes, in private facilities that contract with the VA, and in those operated by states that the VA helps fund.

"They are cutting on nursing-home beds already at a peak for the World War II generation and the Korea and Vietnam veterans will soon appear," Edgerton told me recently.

Those cuts could particularly be troublesome for the program in which the VA can provide up to 65 percent of funding to build state nursing homes for veterans.

"I think it means closure at a lot of state homes," Edgerton said.

The new chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee has said that he wants to see the VA return to its "core constituency" of caring for disabled and indigent veterans. But an aide to the chairman, Republican Steve Buyer, of Indiana, did not offer any insight into his thoughts on the budget.

"Over the next few weeks the whole committee will be going over testimony to see if the needs of veterans coming home today and in the past are met," Laura Zuckerman, a committee spokeswoman, told me.

The tentative 2006 VA budget also would provide $750 million for the program realigning VA medical care known as CARES, for Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services.

Under the 2006 budget for CARES, 28 new outpatient clinics are proposed as well as funding for design work for two new medical facilities in Biloxi, Miss., and Fayetteville, Ark. The total investment into the program to date is $2.5 billion, according to the VA, and the new dollars also would help fund five other major construction projects in Las Vegas, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Gainesville, Fla., and Anchorage, Alaska.

Health care for veterans seems to be wracked with uncertainty each year. But Rep. Lane Evans, the ranking Democrat on the House veterans committee, is among some congressional and veterans leaders who say such uncertainty can be eliminated.

The Illinois congressman recently introduced a bill that would establish mandatory dollars for veterans health care rather than depending on the crapshoot of discretionary funds from Congress. The large veterans service organizations support mandatory funding. Whether enough support can be mustered in Congress is the big question.

Overall, the administration is seeking $70.8 billion for the VA. This includes $37.4 billion in mandatory funding that is mostly for compensation, pension and various benefit programs. The VA also is asking for about $290 million in the 2006 budget for its cemetery system, which includes burial benefits. This amount is about $17 million, or 6.4 percent, more than in the funding level for this year.

Are you jumping for joy yet?