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CAS3
05-30-03, 09:51 AM
VA Secretary Praises Work of Presidential Task Force

WASHINGTON (May 28, 2003) -- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony
J. Principi praised the work of a presidential task force commissioned to
improve coordination between the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the
Department of Defense (DoD).

"This report is a roadmap to the President's often repeated goal
that the walls separating DoD and VA will come down for good," said
Principi.

President Bush announced the creation of a 15-member task force on
Memorial Day 2001. The task force's goals were to identify ways to improve
health care delivery to veterans and DoD beneficiaries and to strengthen the
VA-DoD partnership for health care services. Among the items studied were
budgeting, billing, reimbursement, procurement of supplies and services,
data sharing and information technology.

"When the young men and women who are now defending our freedom in
the foreign corners of the globe put aside their uniforms and assume the
honored title of veteran, they have every right to expect VA to pick up
their health care needs seamlessly and process benefit claims as if DoD and
VA were, for all intents and purposes, one shared system," Principi said.

Coordination between VA and DoD has been a key part of Principi's
agenda. Through a number of initiatives, including a joint VA-DoD executive
council and sharing agreements between local VA and military medical
facilities across the country, the two largest cabinet departments are
already in the process of implementing 21 of the task force's 23
recommendations.

"While we have more work to do before we are done, I am committed to
fulfilling the President's vision," Principi said. "Secretary Rumsfeld and
I care for the same people at different points in their lives, and neither
of us can meet these needs until we transform the way we do business."

The task force also addressed funding for VA's core medical care
mission -- providing health care for veterans with military disabilities or
low incomes.

Principi noted that the President's 2004 budget request for VA
includes an unprecedented $27.5 billion in discretionary funding for medical
care, which fully funds health care for all core veterans and is consistent
with the recommendations of the task force.

"With the support of the President, VA has received the largest
increases in our history," Principi said. "The request for VA medical care,
a nearly 8 percent increase over 2003, represents the largest increase in
actual dollars ever requested by any President."

The presidential task force was co-chaired by Dr. Gail R. Wilensky,
former head of the Health Care Financing Administration, former Congressman
John Paul Hammerschmidt and the late New York Congressman Gerald B.H.
Solomon.