thedrifter
02-08-06, 07:08 PM
February 08, 2006
Plan to raise health care fees draws opposition
By Andrea Stone
USA Today
At 66, Air Force veteran Charles Carson is on Medicare. His Social Security benefits and odd jobs bring in up to $50,000 a year to help buy insurance to help supplement the federal health care program for seniors. He also could sign up for Medicare’s new prescription-drug plan.
But the retired Hallandale, Fla., businessman expects the Department of Veterans Affairs to cover the costs of his primary medical care and prescription drugs. He says the government owes it to him for four years of service, including guiding B-52 bombers as a ground controller.
“I gave them my time,” he says. “I want what’s coming to me.”
What could be coming to Carson and other middle-income veterans with no service-related disabilities are higher fees and co-payments at VA facilities. The increases are included in President Bush’s fiscal year 2007 budget. Spending on medical care for veterans would rise 8.1 percent to $33.2 billion annually, including $2.8 billion out of veterans’ pockets.
For the fifth year in a row, President Bush is asking veterans to pay more. This year, he wants those with incomes generally above $27,000 to pay $250 a year to enroll in the VA system and $15 for each prescription, up from the current $8. Assets, such as a house and savings, would be factored in to whether a veteran pays more.
Some higher-income veterans without service-related injuries have been barred from entering the VA medical program. The enrollment fee applies to 200,000 of the 7.7 million veterans enrolled in the VA program. The increased drug co-payments affect 1 million veterans. Both changes would net $795 million in savings.
It will happen only if Congress agrees. But lawmakers never have because of pressure from veterans groups, despite rising health care costs. A November congressional report said such proposals “should not be included” in the future.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who chairs the panel overseeing the VA budget, said she will evaluate the latest request. But, she added, “I have been consistent and adamant that we do not increase the financial burden on veterans.”
Today, veterans groups will again testify against the increases before a House panel. They say that a time of war, when the VA estimates that more than 100,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan will become patients, is no time to reduce benefits.
“It’s been a constant struggle,” says Richard Fuller, legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. “Why should veterans, particularly now, have to go begging and pleading to get the quality health care they’ve earned?”
But Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said, “There is a limit to taxpayer funding.”
VA Undersecretary for Health Jonathan Perlin said that 95 percent of those affected by the proposed higher fees already have private health insurance or are eligible for Medicare. The VA says the increases are comparable to another Bush plan to raise health care fees for military retirees under age 65.
“We can only take care of people to the extent that we have the money,” VA spokesman Phil Budahn says.
A decade-old move by Congress opened the VA health care system to all who served, not just wounded or indigent veterans. Since then, the VA system has undergone a sea change from the horrible conditions of a Vietnam-era VA hospital as depicted in the movie “Born on the Fourth of July” to being rated better than private health care in a recent University of Michigan customer satisfaction survey.
Joe Violante of Disabled American Veterans says it costs an average of $3,500 a year to care for an elderly veteran at the VA, compared with $7,200 using Medicare for private care.
Fred Cowell, 64, who served two Navy tours in Vietnam and was later paralyzed in a car accident, has health insurance through his job as a PVA health policy analyst. But the Fort Washington, Md., veteran prefers the VA because of its expertise in treating patients with spinal cord injuries.
“They’re changing the rules of the game,” Cowell says. “They’re shoving the cost of veterans’ care onto the veteran.”
Ellie
Plan to raise health care fees draws opposition
By Andrea Stone
USA Today
At 66, Air Force veteran Charles Carson is on Medicare. His Social Security benefits and odd jobs bring in up to $50,000 a year to help buy insurance to help supplement the federal health care program for seniors. He also could sign up for Medicare’s new prescription-drug plan.
But the retired Hallandale, Fla., businessman expects the Department of Veterans Affairs to cover the costs of his primary medical care and prescription drugs. He says the government owes it to him for four years of service, including guiding B-52 bombers as a ground controller.
“I gave them my time,” he says. “I want what’s coming to me.”
What could be coming to Carson and other middle-income veterans with no service-related disabilities are higher fees and co-payments at VA facilities. The increases are included in President Bush’s fiscal year 2007 budget. Spending on medical care for veterans would rise 8.1 percent to $33.2 billion annually, including $2.8 billion out of veterans’ pockets.
For the fifth year in a row, President Bush is asking veterans to pay more. This year, he wants those with incomes generally above $27,000 to pay $250 a year to enroll in the VA system and $15 for each prescription, up from the current $8. Assets, such as a house and savings, would be factored in to whether a veteran pays more.
Some higher-income veterans without service-related injuries have been barred from entering the VA medical program. The enrollment fee applies to 200,000 of the 7.7 million veterans enrolled in the VA program. The increased drug co-payments affect 1 million veterans. Both changes would net $795 million in savings.
It will happen only if Congress agrees. But lawmakers never have because of pressure from veterans groups, despite rising health care costs. A November congressional report said such proposals “should not be included” in the future.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, who chairs the panel overseeing the VA budget, said she will evaluate the latest request. But, she added, “I have been consistent and adamant that we do not increase the financial burden on veterans.”
Today, veterans groups will again testify against the increases before a House panel. They say that a time of war, when the VA estimates that more than 100,000 veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan will become patients, is no time to reduce benefits.
“It’s been a constant struggle,” says Richard Fuller, legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. “Why should veterans, particularly now, have to go begging and pleading to get the quality health care they’ve earned?”
But Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said, “There is a limit to taxpayer funding.”
VA Undersecretary for Health Jonathan Perlin said that 95 percent of those affected by the proposed higher fees already have private health insurance or are eligible for Medicare. The VA says the increases are comparable to another Bush plan to raise health care fees for military retirees under age 65.
“We can only take care of people to the extent that we have the money,” VA spokesman Phil Budahn says.
A decade-old move by Congress opened the VA health care system to all who served, not just wounded or indigent veterans. Since then, the VA system has undergone a sea change from the horrible conditions of a Vietnam-era VA hospital as depicted in the movie “Born on the Fourth of July” to being rated better than private health care in a recent University of Michigan customer satisfaction survey.
Joe Violante of Disabled American Veterans says it costs an average of $3,500 a year to care for an elderly veteran at the VA, compared with $7,200 using Medicare for private care.
Fred Cowell, 64, who served two Navy tours in Vietnam and was later paralyzed in a car accident, has health insurance through his job as a PVA health policy analyst. But the Fort Washington, Md., veteran prefers the VA because of its expertise in treating patients with spinal cord injuries.
“They’re changing the rules of the game,” Cowell says. “They’re shoving the cost of veterans’ care onto the veteran.”
Ellie