Budget Impact on Veterans

BUDGET IMPACT ON VETERANS -- (Senate - February 10, 2005)

Mrs. MURRAY. Madam President, one week ago we walked across the Capitol to hear President Bush outline his priorities for the Nation when he issued his State of the Union Address. On that night, President Bush told all of us and the Nation that the document reflecting his priorities, his fiscal year 2006 budget, " ..... substantially reduces or eliminates more the than 150 government programs that are not getting results, or duplicate current efforts, or do not fulfill essential priorities."

Less than a week after delivering that address, the President unveiled his budget that defines exactly what he sees as those nonessential priorities. What are they? Students; our ports and our borders; accessible health care; nuclear waste cleanup.

In addition, his budget has not one dollar-that is right, not one single dollar-for the two top priorities the President talked about that night. His two top priorities: Social Security transition, and making the tax cuts permanent. Both of those items are completely ignored in his budget. This is a camouflage budget that we have been presented, and it is meant to hide the truth from American families.

What the President should know is that families in my home State of Washington and across the country are concerned about the security of their jobs, the security of their communities, access to affordable health care, and quality education.

Unfortunately, rather than inspiring confidence, I believe the President's budget leaves too many Americans questioning the future. On issue after issue, this budget falls short of what our communities need today to move forward and to feel secure.

What I would like to focus on is this budget's impact on one group that we absolutely must take care of, and that is our Nation's veterans. We have no greater obligation as elected officials than to take care of those who have taken care of us. Unfortunately, I fear this administration is failing in this most important responsibility. After asking thousands of soldiers to serve us overseas, this administration is not making their health care and their well-being a priority when they cease being soldiers and become veterans.

Access to first-class care should be a reality for all veterans, especially while our Nation is at war. The President's budget may have a few small steps in the right direction, but, sadly, he does not go far enough to meet the needs of all veterans. If this budget and its misguided proposals were enacted, it would devastate veterans' health care. Payroll and inflation increases for doctors, for nurses, for medications cost more than $1 billion. But the President has proposed to give the VA only half what it needs. To make up for the shortfall, the budget forces more than 2 million so-called middle-income veterans to pay more than double for their needed medications and to pay a $250 enrollment fee. That is not what we promised veterans when we asked them to serve us overseas.

In addition, the President's budget actually continues to ban some veterans from coming to the VA for care. So far under this flawed policy, 192,260 veterans have been turned away across the country, including more than 3,000 in my home State. This sends the wrong message to our troops overseas. They need to know we are there for them when they return home.

Sadly, this budget also destroys the relationship between the VA and our States. After the Civil War, the VA has supported the cost of veterans who reside in our State VA nursing homes. But this budget now calls on States to cover the entire cost of care for many veterans in these cost-effective nursing homes.

To make this budget add up, the President calls for $590 million in unspecified efficiencies. Thousands of nurses and other providers will be cut, thousands of nursing home beds will be shuttered, and more than 1 million veterans will no longer be able to afford to come to the VA for care.

You don't have to take my word for this. Listen to the head of the VFW who addressed this issue in Commerce Daily a few days ago. John Furgess, who heads the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said the administration's proposed $880 million increase in veterans health care only amounts to an increase of about $100 million because the budget proposes that veterans shoulder a $250 enrollment fee and an increased copay on prescription drugs in addition to nursing home cuts. Furgess said:

Part of the federal government's deficit will be balanced on the backs of military veterans, because it's clear that the proper funding of veterans' health care and other programs is not an administration priority.

There is more. Before the budget was even sent to Congress, I read this in the New York Times:

Richard B. Fuller, legislative director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America, said: "The proposed increase in health spending is not sufficient at a time when the number of patients is increasing and there has been a huge increase in health care costs. It will not cover the need. The enrollment fee is a health care tax, designed to raise revenue and to discourage people from enrolling."

Mr. Fuller added that the budget would force veterans, hospitals, and clinics to limit services. He said:

We are already seeing an increase in waiting lists, even for some Iraq veterans.

The story went on to say that there are already some hospitals with waiting lists for Iraqi veterans:

In Michigan, for example, thousands of veterans are on waiting lists for medical services, and some reservists returning from Iraq say they have been unable to obtain the care they were promised. A veterans clinic in Pontiac, Mich., put a limit on new enrollment. Cutbacks at a veterans hospital in Altoona, Pa., are forcing some veterans to seek treatment elsewhere.

And yesterday, in an editorial titled "Penalizing Veterans," the Boston Globe said:

It is a sign of how desperate the Bush administration is to protect tax cuts for the wealthy while also trying to reduce runaway deficits that it would call for veterans to pay more for their health benefits. Congress should reject this proposal out of hand and put enough money into veterans' health care to end the inexcusable waiting lists at many veterans' facilities.

I ask unanimous consent to print the editorial in the RECORD.

There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
[From the Boston Globe, Feb. 9, 2005]

Penalizing Veterans

It is a sign of how desperate the Bush administration is to protect tax cuts for the wealthy while also trying to reduce runaway deficits that it would call for veterans to pay more for their health benefits. Congress should reject this proposal out of hand and put enough money into veterans' health care to end the inexcusable waiting lists at many veterans' facilities.

Under the Bush proposal, veterans would have to pay an enrollment fee of $250 for VA care. Their copay for prescription drugs would rise from $7 to $15 for a monthly prescription. The administration lamely defends these charges by noting that they are for "higher-income" veterans without service-connected disabilities. According to Joe March of the American Legion, the administration defines "higher income" as $25,000 or more, which hardly qualifies as the Boca Raton set. A VA spokesman said the income level is based on local conditions. He could not provide a national average.

The goal of the administration, which has made similar proposals in the past, is to save close to a half-billion dollars by coaxing more than 200,000 veterans to seek care in other venues. But increasing numbers of older Americans have been turning to VA clinics and hospitals because they have lost their employment-based insurance and discovered that Medicare will not start covering prescription drug costs until 2006. Many of these veterans do not have affordable alternatives. According to Representative Stephen Lynch of South Boston, veterans in his district often have to wait eight months to see a doctor.

Treatment of veterans without service-related disabilities is considered "discretionary" spending by the Department of Veterans Affairs. Veterans" advocates think this care should not be discretionary but mandatory, like Medicare. In spite of the growing number of veterans from recent wars, the increasingly severe health needs of older veterans, and overall increases in health costs, the administration is asking for just a 2.7 percent increase for "discretionary" health care. Veterans groups favor an increase of 25 percent.

That is not realistic, but it is a reflection of the frustration the advocates feel knowing that inadequate spending for veterans' health is undermining the unwritten promise of lifetime care that many veterans believe was made to them when they took the oath.

"Veterans' health care is an ongoing expense of war," the American Legion's national commander, Thomas Cadmus, said yesterday. It is particularly wrong-headed for the administration to squeeze veterans when some of the armed services have had trouble filling their ranks. Congress should tell the Bush administration that veterans, who enlisted to help their nation, should not be enlisted anew, involuntarily, and burdened with the job of balancing the budget.

Mrs. MURRAY. As my colleagues can see, I am not alone in my concern for this budget's tremendous impact on our veterans. Unfortunately, the widespread outrage at this budget is not limited to its impact on veterans. I could speak for much time on this floor about my concern about the other priorities our country faces-health care, education, and nuclear waste cleanup.

As a member of the Budget Committee, I raised some of these concerns yesterday with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget. I was pretty disappointed with OMB Director Bolten's responses to our questions on energy policy, on veterans, and on a number of other issues that came before the Budget Committee. This morning, Secretary Snow is addressing the committee. I will leave the floor now to attend that hearing. I hope we get better responses from him.

But for now, let me just say that it seems to me that President Bush believes that in his budget veterans are a nonessential priority. That is an insult. It is an insult to them, to their service, and their sacrifice. I know I, along with many of my colleagues, will not stand for this assault on our veterans. They deserve better.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

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