House approves added veterans medical funds
Military veterans’ medical facilities would get a $1.5-billion infusion of cash to help treat those wounded in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan under legislation approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.
The House voted 410-10 to pass an unrelated spending bill for federal lands and environmental programs that contained the added veterans’ funds.
The action ended a long-running feud between Democrats in Congress, who have insisted that more money was needed for veterans’ health care, and the Bush administration, which balked, but ultimately acknowledged using outdated forecasts to estimate veterans’ health care costs this year and next.
The U.S. Senate already is on record in favor of the $1.5 billion in added funding this year. But it is expected to cast another procedural vote for the money by the end of the week.
After months of rebuffing House and Senate Democrats’ efforts to increase funding for veterans’ health care, Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson on June 28 acknowledged to Congress that there was a serious funding shortfall.
He told a House panel that his agency no longer could stand by estimates of 23,553 patients who are veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Instead, that number would be around 103,000, Nicholson said.
Many of those veterans have severe combat-related problems, including lost limbs.
Nicholson also said that veterans’ health care facilities were being swamped by aging veterans from earlier wars who are beginning to require expensive treatment.
In addition to the $1.5 billion in stopgap funds for the current fiscal year, which ends September 30, Congress in coming weeks is expected to approve another $1.5 billion in unanticipated veterans health care funds for the next fiscal year.
As Democrats spent much of this summer trying to tar their political opponents for undercutting veterans’ health care programs, Republicans insisted that no veterans were being denied care while Congress ironed out the problem.
But veterans’ organizations have been complaining about long waits for appointments at medical centers.
Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, the senior Democrat on a House panel that oversees spending on veterans’ programs, said a San Diego, California, veterans facility has delayed filling 131 vacant positions for three months and 750 veterans were on a waiting list for appointments.
Edwards said a Portland, Oregon, medical center had delayed nonemergency surgeries for at least six months.
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