Improving Medical Record-Keeping is Laudable, but President's Record on Veterans' Health Care is Not

Pelosi: 'Improving Medical Record-Keeping is Laudable, but President's Record on Veterans' Health Care is Not'

Washington, D.C.-House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on President Bush's visit to a Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital in Maryland:

"While President Bush is at a VA hospital today to talk about medical records, veterans should take a look at the President's shameful record on veterans' health care. Even as he praises new technology, the President has proposed a budget that slashes funding for medical research and care at the VA.

"The President virtually freezes the medical care budget and calls for a $50 million cut in the Nobel Prize-winning VA medical and prosthetic research initiative that created the Seattle Foot, developed the cardiac pacemaker, and conducted the first successful drug treatments for high blood pressure and schizophrenia. It is currently conducting promising research that will help fight bioterrorism, but the President's budget cut would set the research grant project back six years. The President's budget will also increase the cost of health care for millions of veterans, forcing 200,000 out of the VA system altogether and discouraging another million veterans from enrolling for care.

"It is unconscionable that the President is slashing research funding that could be used to improve prosthetics for veterans while many of our brave troops return home from Iraq and Afghanistan with terrible injuries that require this expertise. Improving medical record-keeping is laudable, but the President's record on veterans' health care is not."