Vet Groups Seek VA Independent Budget

Recent announcements that the Department of Veterans Affairs had underestimated its fiscal 2005 and 2006 health care budgets by billions of dollars came as no surprise to the four veterans’ service organizations that co-author The Independent Budget. Senior leaders from the Veterans of Foreign Wars, AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans and Paralyzed Veterans of America are telling the administration and Congress that the VA’s funding formula was flawed and The Independent Budget recommendations were far more realistic than the administration’s. The budget shortfall is causing VA medical centers and clinics to take drastic measures from now to the end of the government’s fiscal year on Sept. 30, states VFW commander John Furgess. Some facilities are shortening hours, not filling employee vacancies, or not accepting new patients. Others are prescribing less expensive medications, or have replaced expensive temporary staffs with less expensive, less skilled employees.