Bush Plan Denies Health Care to 600,000 Military Retirees
Once the uniform comes off, you're on your own. From American Progress:
President Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have proposed fee hikes to the Pentagon's health care system, TRICARE, that could deny health benefits to as many as 600,000 veterans. Under Bush's proposal, military retirees would be forced to pay higher prescription drug co-payments and annual enrollment fees. The plan would triple health care costs for retirees. The Military Officers Association of America says the administration is playing a "shell game" by steering military retirees away from TRICARE and instead toward health plans offered by their current employers. Rep. John McHugh (R-NY), military personnel subcommittee chairman, said, "I guess we could talk about the morality of that, if that's the way to contain costs [by] persuading people not to use health care. But I'm going to put that aside."
posted by storiesinamerica @ 9:07 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
I know, I know, it's cruel and insensitive for me to even bring this up...but:
Total Outlays for Veterans Benefits 2001: $45,039,000
Total Outlays for Veterans Benefits 2006: $70,410,000
Amount of increase 2001-2006: $25,371,000
Percentage increase 2001-2006: 56%
Veterans program overpayments cost $800 million anually.
Office of Management and Budget (OMB) data.
Alright, I'll be quiet now.
Oops...typed in my word verification for my name.
Cheers,
Timmy the Tard
Besides, haven't you heard....some of these veterans are "un-American."
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013227.php
Here's more from Iraq and Afghanistan Vets of America:
THE PRESIDENT SAID: "The time when we're holding down discretionary spending, my 2007 budget -- with my 2007 budget, my administration will have increased funding for our veterans by $35 billion since I took office, which is an increase of 75 percent."
FACT: According to Disabled American Veterans, $2.8 billion of this "spending" in the 2007 budget would actually come out of the Veterans' bank accounts. Some Veterans will be charged a $250 enrollment fee for VA services, and prescription copayments would nearly double. Further, the VA will still not be properly funded to handle the increased load of Veterans coming home from the current conflicts.
Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars have declared that the FY 2007 budget proposal from the Administration was at least $2 billion short of where it needed to be.
THE PRESIDENT SAID: "We have made health care a top priority for my administration. With my 2007 budget, we'll increase VA's medical care budget by 69 percent since 2001. Our increased funding has given almost a million more veterans access to the VA medical care system. Since January 2002, disability claims are being processed 63 days faster than they were when I took office. In the last four years, we've committed almost $3 billion to modernize and expanding VA facilities so that more veterans can get care closer to home. We're working to ensure that veterans with the greatest needs -- those with service disabilities and lower incomes and special needs -- are given priority. We've making sure that our men and women returning from combat are the first in line for treatment."
FACT: Not all Guardsmen and Reservists receive medical insurance. At last count, nearly 20 percent of Guardsmen and Reservists had no health care when off active duty. Though a proposal passed to allow them to buy into TRICARE (military health care), many of these patriots come home to unemployment or underemployment and will be unable to afford to buy into TRICARE.
Disabled American Veterans, AMVETS, Paralyzed Veterans of America and the Veterans of Foreign Wars have declared that the FY 2007 budget proposal from the Administration was at least $1.2 billion short of where it needed to be strictly in terms of health care funding.
A while back Rose linked an article by Rich Lowry to make a point....I'll follow her lead:
http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200312180910.asp
Believe what you will....
http://www1.va.gov/opa/pressrel/PressArtInternet.cfm?id=1075
Sen. Orrin Hatch backpedaled Tuesday from a recent claim he made asserting that deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was supporting al-Qaida, and that "Nobody with brains" would deny the connec- tion.
The assertion was striking not so much for its audacious tone, but because it contradicted the findings of multiple intelligence reviews, including the 9-11 Commission's report and a review by the Senate Intelligence Committee, on which Hatch sits.
Appearing before a group of Iron County, Utah, business leaders Saturday, Hatch said: "And, more importantly, we've stopped a mass murderer in Saddam Hussein. Nobody denies that he was supporting al-Qaida," he said, according to The Spectrum newspaper in St. George. "Well, I shouldn't say nobody. Nobody with brains."
Said John Pike, director of the national security think tank GlobalSecurity.org: "I guess I don't have a brain, then.
http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_3533814
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