News
18 veterans commit suicide each day
Apr 23rd
By Rick Maze–Military Times 
Troubling new data show there are an average of 950 suicide attempts each month by veterans who are receiving some type of treatment from the Veterans Affairs Department.
Seven percent of the attempts are successful, and 11 percent of those who don’t succeed on the first attempt try again within nine months.
The numbers, which come at a time when VA is strengthening its suicide prevention programs, show about 18 veteran suicides a day, about five by veterans who are receiving VA care.
Access to care appears to be a key factor, officials said, noting that once a veteran is inside the VA care program, screening programs are in place to identify those with problems, and special efforts are made to track those considered at high risk, such as monitoring whether they are keeping appointments.
Popularity: 32% [?]
Panel urges VA to plan now for vets care
Apr 1st
Excerpt: Based on a review of disability claims from past wars, the report says the number of disability claims from recent veterans should peak around 2040.
By Kimberly Hefling – The Associated Press–
WASHINGTON — Looking decades ahead, the Institute of Medicine is urging the Veterans Affairs Department to begin planning now for the long-term health care needs of the estimated 1.9 million veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Specifically, the institute says in a report released Wednesday, not enough is known about what works best in the long term to treat veterans with traumatic brain injuries, often caused by roadside bombs.
While a multitude of public and private programs is available to help the men and women who have served in the recent conflicts, there is little coordination and sparse information about which ones are effective, the report said.
A 16-member panel coordinated by the Institute of Medicine instigated the review of the readjustment needs of troops, veterans and their families at the request of Congress. The institute is part of the National Academies, an independent organization chartered by Congress to advise the government on scientific matters.
Dr. Victoria Cassano, the VA’s liaison to the institute, said many of the report’s recommendations are “right on.” Cassano said it covers important issues the VA is either already working on or will consider.
The report urged Congress to direct the VA to produce more detailed annual projections of the needs of veterans and their families, so more thorough planning can be done to prepare for an uptick in disability claims and health needs in the decades ahead as the veterans age.
Based on a review of disability claims from past wars, the report says the number of disability claims from recent veterans should peak around 2040.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets any better,” said Ryan Edwards, an economics professor from the City University of New York, who served on the panel. “We’re going to see a larger burden … and it will continue to expand.”
The report praised the VA’s work to establish rehabilitation services for those with traumatic brain injury, which is often called the signature wound of the Iraq war. But it said the VA should sponsor research into protocols for long-term care for those with traumatic brain injury because little research is available.
“It’s an evolving area, and it’s going to need to evolve more to keep up with the patient population,” said Dr. George Rutherford, the panel chairman, who is a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.
Overall, the report said, the VA and Defense Department should better coordinate services available to veterans. It held up as a successful model Military OneSource, a one-stop online and telephone information source for military personnel and their families.
The study said the Defense Department needs to better address troops’ reluctance to report mental health problems and should review how it handles confidentiality when a service member seeks help. It also encouraged the Defense Department and VA to hire more mental health professionals.
It could be helpful for service members returning home from war if there’s an interim place they can go following time in combat to rest and prepare for the adjustment back to the U.S., the report said.
Navy Capt. Edward Simmer said the Defense Department is already looking for ways to address some of the problems discussed in the report. “The things we need to work on, we’ll definitely get started with,” Simmer said.
Simmer is the senior executive for psychological health at the Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury in Rosslyn, Va.
Next month, the panel starts a second, two-year examination of veterans’ health issues.
Popularity: 28% [?]
VA doctors prohibited from prescribing medical pot
Mar 31st
By SUE MAJOR HOLMES–The Associated Press–
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — When Paul Culkin came home to New Mexico after serving with an Army bomb squad in Iraq, he tried counseling and medications offered by the Department of Veterans Affairs to cope with his post traumatic stress disorder.
Nothing worked very well. Then he found a new alternative: marijuana.
New Mexico is the only state that explicitly allows people with PTSD to smoke pot under its medical marijuana law – an issue that is getting attention around the country at a time when traumatized vets are coming home from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in large numbers.
New Mexico’s medical marijuana law has created a conundrum for the Veterans Affairs, which does not allow its doctors to prescribe pot because the drug is illegal in the eyes of the federal government. So, patients like Culkin must seek out an endorsement from a private doctor.
PTSD accounts for more patients than any other of the state’s 16 eligible debilitating conditions approved for medical marijuana treatment.
Culkin wishes the VA could provide it.
“Oh my God, it would be so helpful,” said Culkin, 30, who heads the New Mexico Medical Marijuana Patients Group formed last December as a support and education group.
If the VA handled all needs – including medical cannabis – care for veterans would improve, he said, because the doctor would know everything about the patient.
“If these guys fought the hardest they could, why not give them the best medicine, or an alternative medicine you can?” Culkin said.
States where medical marijuana use has been approved have been trying to determine what ailments the drug will help. Those efforts have resulted in a mishmash of regulations.
For instance, a Colorado House committee in March rejected following New Mexico’s lead in specifically listing PTSD to qualify for medical marijuana. California doctors can recommend medical marijuana for a variety of conditions and “any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”
The American Medical Association has called for controlled studies of marijuana for patients whose conditions it might help. The association also wants a review of marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 drug so clinical research can move ahead.
The Department of Veterans Affairs says it is developing a national policy, and the head of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access believes a VA policy allowing medical marijuana “is inevitable.”
“We’re all on the same side,” said Michael Krawitz of Virginia. “My goal is a good outcome for the veteran, and that’s their goal.”
“The irony in this … is it’s a common thing for veterans to tell me, ‘The VA is telling me if I just stay away from medical marijuana, we’ll give you all the pills you want, morphine, whatever,’” he said.
Krawitz, 47, was severely injured in a motorcycle accident while stationed in Guam with the Air Force about 20 years ago and eventually received a medical discharge.
He is an advocate for marijuana’s medicinal benefits.
“It makes it so you can put down a lot of the pain pills. It helps with nerve pain, that really bad spasming and twitching.”
He praises the care he’s gotten from the VA, but adds: “I feel sorry for the VA; they’re caught in the middle … They have a clear mandate to take care of veterans.”
Given their inability to get medical marijuana from the VA, New Mexico veterans are finding their own go-to physicians, including Dr. Eve Elting in the central part of the state.
“I have guys coming to see me from all over the state, five or six hours’ drive, just to be legal,” said Elting, of Truth or Consequences. “It’s bad enough they have something that makes life so challenging. On top of that they’re discriminated against, made to feel like they’re doing something wrong.”
Elting said veterans hear about her by word of mouth since she will see people who aren’t regular patients. About a quarter of those who come to her want medical marijuana for PTSD. One day she saw eight veterans – five for PTSD.
New Mexico doctors do not prescribe medical cannabis. Rather, they certify someone has one of the approved conditions and that standard treatment doesn’t work. Patients then apply to the state program. If an application is approved, the patient gets a registry ID card that allows possession of up to 6 ounces of medical marijuana.
A psychiatrist’s diagnosis must be included for PTSD. For chronic pain, X-rays or CT scans are required and both a primary doctor and a specialist have to sign off.
“Even though the VA has prohibited them from signing the documents, I don’t see why a physician treating the veteran would not be willing to sign a piece of paper attesting that the patient had that condition,” said Elting, who did her residency at a VA hospital and serves on New Mexico’s eight-member medical advisory board for the program.
Veterans armed with Elting’s signature would still have to find a private psychiatrist or other specialist to sign.
“Everyone’s happy to give them a million narcotics, anti-psychotics. It’s frustrating,” she said.
Popularity: 35% [?]
Vets deserve a piece of jobs bill, VFW says
Feb 26th
By Rick Maze –Military Times–
The nation’s largest organization of combat veterans is demanding changes in the $15 billion jobs bill that passed the Senate on Wednesday because veterans were left out of a package of tax credits and highway projects aimed at increasing employment.
“Despite having more than 1.1 million unemployed veterans, the 60-page package failed to mention ‘veteran’ or ‘veterans’ even once,” said Justin Brown, a legislative associate with the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Brown was referring to HR 2847, the Hiring Incentive to Restore Employment Act, or HIRE Act, that passed the Senate on Wednesday by a 70-28 vote and is pending before the House.
Speaking before the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s economic opportunity panel, which is considering legislation that would expand vocational training for veterans, Brown said the VFW “finds it unconscionable that American’s veterans, who have left their families, risked their lives and limbs and left civilian career pursuits behind to answer the nation’s call, do not have the attention of Congress for this important matter.”
The unemployment rate for Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans is almost 15.8 percent, higher than the average 10.6 percent overall unemployment rate, as well as the 11.8 percent rate for foreign-born U.S. citizens — a sore point among veterans groups such as the VFW.
Popularity: 42% [?]
Nye: $750 a Month is Too Much, Too Fast
Feb 22nd
Washington, DC – Congressman Glenn Nye (VA-02) is asking the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to
ease the burden on local veterans.
Last week, the VA announced that it will ask veterans who received $3,000 emergency payments under the Post 9/11 GI Bill to begin repaying the money – at a rate of up to $750 per month. The emergency payments were issued last year to veterans whose tuition benefits from the Post 9/11 GI Bill were delayed due to processing backlogs at the VA.
On Monday, Nye sent a letter to Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, asking the VA to reduce the repayment rate from $750 per month to a rate of no more than 20% of each veteran’s monthly living stipend. For veterans receiving the lowest living stipend, this would mean a repayment amount of $132 per month.
“Asking our veterans to repay $750 a month is too much, too fast, especially when many veterans are struggling to get back on their feet after their benefit payments were delayed last fall,” said Congressman Glenn Nye. “The idea of this program is to help our veterans get ahead, not to bury them in debt and paperwork. The VA should implement a realistic repayment plan that eases the burden on our veterans so they can focus on getting a college education.”
When the Post 9/11 GI Bill program went into effect last fall, many veterans found that their tuition and living benefits were delayed for weeks or months due to extended processing backlogs. After students were forced to take out personal loans or run up credit card debt in order to pay bills while waiting for their benefit checks, the VA issued one-time, emergency payments of $3,000 to help veterans make ends meet.
These emergency payments were an advance against future benefits – not an additional bonus – and they must eventually be recouped by the VA. In mid-February, the VA announced on its web site that it would begin deducting $750 from veterans’ monthly benefit payments.
Popularity: 53% [?]
Shinseki: US will fix broken VA disability system
Feb 22nd
By KIMBERLY HEFLING
CHILLICOTHE, Ohio (AP) – Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said he’s making it a top priority this year to tackle the backlog of disability claims that has veterans waiting months — even years — to get financial compensation for their injuries.
Among those waiting for relief are sick Vietnam and Gulf War veterans to whom the former Army commander feels an allegiance and who have long felt ignored.
“I’m a kid out of the Vietnam era, I just have enough firsthand knowledge of folks walking around with lots of issues. If there’s a generation of veterans that have had a tough row to hoe, it’s the Vietnam generation,” said Shinseki, 67, in an interview with The Associated Press as he traveled through snowcapped mountains in Ohio and West Virginia between meetings with veterans.
Shinseki, a former Army chief of staff who had part of a foot blown off when he was a young officer in Vietnam, was unapologetic about a decision he made in October to make it easier for potentially 200,000 sick Vietnam veterans who were exposed to the Agent Orange herbicide to receive service-connected compensation.
He said it was the right thing to do, even though the claims volume will grow and it will likely take about two years to get the average claim-processing wait time back to where it is today, about five months.
There’s a chance Shinseki could also extend similar benefits to veterans from the 1991 Gulf War. A task force he appointed to look at their health is expected to release a report this week, which could eventually lead to thousands of additional sick Gulf war veterans receiving health care and compensation.
Shinseki said he’s often questioned why 40 years after the Vietnam war and nearly two decades after the Gulf War his agency is still trying to resolve issues related to those veterans’ illnesses.
Vietnam veterans with B-cell leukemias, Parkinson’s diseases and ischemic heart disease no longer have to prove their illness are the result of their military service. Shinseki determined after reviewing a study by the Institute of Medicine that the illnesses should be presumed to have come from the veteran’s war service, making it easier for them to receive financial compensation. The VA currently presumes that twelve other illnesses are linked to Agent Orange are exposure.
Shinseki said he’s looking ahead to make sure Iraq and Afghanistan veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injuries don’t have similar problems getting financial compensation.
“I’m also asking the question, how do we ensure that 20 years from now, that future secretary isn’t answering questions about PTSD or TBI, sort of the signature injuries of this war in the same way that I’m having to look back and try to address these issues,” he said.
In recent years, resources have been poured into clearing the backlog, but problems persist. Besides the time it takes to process a claim, there are frequent complaints about lost paperwork and inconsistency in how claims are processed.
To start looking for solutions, Shinseki’s agency instigated pilot projects in Pittsburgh; Little Rock, Ark.; Providence, R.I.; and Baltimore that he says he’s watching closely. His plan is to reduce the backlog by 2015, which means a veteran wouldn’t wait more than four months for a claim to be processed.
The VA and Pentagon are also working together to create a universal electronic system with the goal of solving many of the claims challenges. Some of the collaboration is expected to be rolled out in 2012, although it could take years before the system is fully in place.
Shinseki, who became the Army’s chief of staff in 1999, is no stranger to change. In that role he sought to modernize and better prepare the Army for urban combat. In his current position, he’s highlighted the challenges veterans face, such as unemployment, suicide and homelessness.
In small gatherings in Chillicothe and Charleston, W.Va., he listened to complaints about the red tape veterans face and explained the work he’s doing to fix the claims backlog.
“We’re going to fine-tune each of the pieces and then put that engine back together again and look for better processing by the end of the year,” Shinseki said during a morning meeting with employees at the VA hospital in Chillicothe.
The employees listened quietly, not touching the pastries and juice put out for them, as he told them matter-of-factly that he knew the Agent Orange decision was going to add new claims.
“This backlog I just told you I’m going to knock down, I added to it, I know that,” he said.
Later in the morning, he told veteran advocates he wants vets to see the VA as an ally.
“In time, I’m hopeful this relationship will create a culture of advocacy between VA and veterans so that there is that sense, that trust between veterans that VA is working to their benefit,” he said.
Popularity: 29% [?]
In Marja, it’s war the old-fashioned way
Feb 20th
By Rajiv Chandrasekaran–Washington Post Foreign Service–
MARJA, AFGHANISTAN — They had slogged through knee-deep mud carrying 100 pounds of gear, fingers glued to the triggers of their M-4 carbines, all the while on the lookout for insurgents. Now, after five near-sleepless nights, trying to avoid hypothermia in freezing temperatures, the grunts of the 1st Battalion of the 6th Marine Regiment finally had a moment to relax.
As the sun set Thursday evening over the rubbled market where they set up camp, four of them sat around an overturned blue bucket and began playing cards. A few cracked open dog-eared paperbacks. Some heated their rations-in-a-bag, savoring their first warm dinner in days. Many doffed their helmets and armored vests.
Then — before the game was over, the chapters finished, the meals cooked — the war roared back at them.
The staccato crack of incoming rounds echoed across the market. In an instant, the Marines grabbed their vests and guns. The 50-caliber gunner on the roof thumped back return fire, as did several Marines with clattering, belt-fed machine guns. High-explosive mortar rounds, intended to suppress the insurgent fire, whooshed overhead.
And so went another night in the battle of Marja.
The fight to pacify this Taliban stronghold in Helmand province is grim and grueling. For all the talk of a modern war — of Predator drones and satellite-guided bombs and mine-resistant vehicles — most Marines in this operation have been fighting the old-fashioned way: on foot, with rifle.
They hump their kit on their backs, bed down under the stars in abandoned compounds and defecate in plastic bags.
“This isn’t all that different from the way our fathers and grandfathers fought,” said Cpl. Blake Burkhart, 22, of Oviedo, Fla.
The battlefield privation here is unlike much of the combat in Iraq, which often involved day trips from large, well-appointed forward operating bases. Even when Marines there had to rough it, during the first and second campaigns for Fallujah, they didn’t have to walk as far and they remained closer to logistics vehicles.
In Marja, U.S. military commanders figured, the best way to throw the insurgents off-balance and avoid the hundreds of homemade bombs buried in the roads was to airdrop almost 1,000 Marines and Afghan soldiers. That provided an element of surprise when the operation commenced, and it allowed the forces to punch into the heart of Marja. But it also meant they would have to tough it out.
Because they had to stuff their packs with food, water and ammunition, sleeping bags and tents were left behind. That seemed fine, because summer temperatures in southern Afghanistan often reach 140 degrees. But at this time of year, the mercury can dip — and it did during the first days of the mission, to freezing temperatures at night.
Huddled under thin plastic camouflage poncho liners, the Marines lucky enough to get a few hours of sleep in between shifts of guard duty huddled close together, sometimes spooning one another, to keep warm.
It didn’t always work. In those first days, more Marines were evacuated for hypothermia than for gunshot wounds. One grunt in the battalion’s Alpha Company proudly displays the frostbitten tip of his middle finger as his battlefield injury.
Popularity: 27% [?]
War in Iraq will be called ‘Operation New Dawn’ to reflect reduced U.S. role
Feb 19th
By Greg Jaffe–Washington Post–
The Obama administration has decided to give the war in Iraq a new name — “Operation New Dawn” — to reflect the reduced role U.S. troops will play in securing the country this year as troop levels fall, according to a memo from Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Since U.S. forces charged across the Kuwaiti border toward Baghdad in 2003, the war has been known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. The new name is scheduled to take effect in September, when U.S. troop levels are supposed to drop to about 50,000.
Popularity: 23% [?]
Report on Marines’ water omitted cancer chemical
Feb 18th
By KEVIN MAURER–Associated Press–WILMINGTON, N.C. – An environmental contractor dramatically underreported the level of a cancer-causing chemical found in tap water at Camp Lejeune, then omitted it altogether as the Marine base prepared for a federal health review, an Associated Press review has found.
The Marine Corps had been warned nearly a decade earlier about the dangerously high levels of benzene, which was traced to massive leaks from fuel tanks at the base on the North Carolina coast, according to recently disclosed studies.
For years, Marines who served at Camp Lejeune have blamed their families’ cancers and other ailments on tap water tainted by dry cleaning solvents, and many accuse the military of covering it up. The benzene was discovered as part of a broader, ongoing probe into that contamination.
When water was sampled in July 1984, scientists found benzene in a well near the base’s Hadnot Point Fuel Farm at levels of 380 parts per billion, according to a water tests done by a contractor. A year later, in a report summarizing the 1984 sampling, the same contractor pointed out the benzene concentration “far exceeds” the safety limit set by federal regulators at 5 parts per billion.
The Marines were still studying the water contamination in 1991 when another contractor again warned the Navy of the health hazards posed by such levels of benzene.
By 1992, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease, an arm of the Department of Health and Human Services, showed up at the base to begin a health risk assessment. That’s when a third contractor, the Michael Baker Corp., released a draft report on the feasibility of fixing the overall problem.
In it, the 1984 level on the well of 380 parts per billion had changed to 38 parts per billion. The company’s final report on the well, issued in 1994, made no mention of the benzene.
Not only hasn’t the benzene disappeared from the now-closed wells, it’s gotten much worse over time. One sample from a series of tests conducted from June 2007 to August 2009 registered 3,490 parts per billion, according to a report from a fourth contractor.
Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an enforcement officer for the Environmental Protection Agency before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney, reviewed the different reports and said it was difficult to conclude innocent mistakes were made in the Baker Corp. documents.
“It is weird that it went from 380 to 38 and then it disappeared entirely,” she said. “It does support the contention that they did do it deliberately.”
News of Baker Corp.’s handling of the benzene levels has ex-Lejeune residents questioning anew the honesty of a military they accuse of endangering their lives.
“It is a shame that an institution founded on honor and integrity would resort to open deceit in order to protect their reputation at the cost of the health, safety and welfare of its service men, women and their families,” said Mike Partain, a 42-year-old who lives in Tallahassee, Fla., but was born at Lejeune and diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007.
Capt. Brian Block, a Marine Corps spokesman, took exception to characterizing the conflicting information in the reports as anything but inadvertent.
“It was probably just a mistake on the part of the contractor, but I can’t tell you for certain why that happened,” he said.
David Higie, a spokesman for Baker Corp., declined to discuss the company’s reports or why its employees might have revised the benzene levels. He referred questions to the military.
Block said Camp Lejeune held a news conference to alert residents of problems with the water system in 1985 and has spent millions of dollars in outreach and studies. “The Marine Corps has never tried to hide any of this information,” he said.
The discrepancies in the reports were tucked inside thousands of documents the Marines released last year to the Agency for Toxic Substances as part of the Marines’ long-running review of water supplied to Camp Lejeune’s main family housing areas. That water was contaminated by fuel and cleaning solvents from the 1950s through the 1980s, and health officials believe as many as 1 million people may have been exposed to the toxins before the wells that supplied the tainted water were closed two decades ago.
The newly discovered records, first reported Sunday by McClatchy News Service, show that a water well contaminated by leaking fuel was left functioning for at least five months after a sampling discovered it was tainted with benzene in 1984.
Benzene, a carcinogen, is a natural part of crude oil and gasoline. Drinking water containing high levels of it can cause vomiting, dizziness, sleepiness, convulsions, and death and long-term exposure damages bone marrow, lowers red blood cells and can cause anemia and leukemia, according to the EPA.
Camp Lejeune environmental engineer Robert Alexander was quoted in 1985 as saying no one “had been directly exposed” to contaminants, including benzene. In December, Alexander told the AP he didn’t recall anything about the well contaminated with the benzene or the ensuing studies that failed to account for its toxicity, but said that the methods at the time were still being perfected, and that he and the other base officials did the best they could.
The records indicate the military knew a lot of specifics.
For years the Marine Corps knew the fuel farm, built in 1941, was leaking 1,500 gallons a month and did nothing to stop it, according to a 1988 memo from a Camp Lejeune lawyer to the base’s assistant facilities manager. “It’s an indefensible waste of money and a continuing potential threat to human health and the environment,” wrote Staff Judge Advocate A.P. Tokarz.
Minutes of a 1996 meeting with Moon Township, Pa.-based Baker Corp., the third contractor, indicate the fuel farm had lost 800,000 gallons of fuel, of which 500,000 gallons had been recovered. Benzene was “in the deeper portion of the aquifer” and the “fuel farm is definitely the source,” the minutes quote a Michael Baker employee as saying.
The Coast Guard categorizes any coastal oil spill larger than 100,000 gallons as major.
Former Marines and Camp Lejeune residents continue to fight for a compensation program and to fund a mortality study that would determine if Marines and sailors who were exposed to these contaminants suffer from a higher death rate. The Senate passed legislation in September backed by Sens. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Kay Hagan, D-N.C., preventing the military from dismissing claims related to water contamination pending completion of the several studies, including the mortality study.
“These people knowingly exposed us to these high levels of contaminants and now they don’t want to know if their negligence caused harm to the people they say they care so much about?” said Jerry Ensminger, a retired master sergeant who lived at the base and lost his 9-year-old daughter to leukemia. “There is definitely something wrong with this picture.”
___
On the Net:
Camp Lejeune water history: http://tinyurl.com/ybpfsc9
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/SITES/LEJEUNE
The Few, The Proud, The Forgotten: http://www.tftptf.com
Popularity: 17% [?]
Eric K. Shinseki’s VA budget proposal aimed to transform the VA into a 21st century organization
Feb 5th
(Media-Newswire.com) – WASHINGTON – White House Seeks $125 Billion for Veterans in 2011 to expand health care to a record-number of Veterans, reduce the number of homeless Veterans and process a dramatically increased number of new disability compensation claims, the White House has announced a proposed $125 billion budget next year for the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“Our budget proposal provides the resources necessary to continue our aggressive pursuit of President Obama’s two over-arching goals for Veterans,” said Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki. “First, the requested budget will help transform VA into a 21st century organization. And second, it will ensure that we approach Veterans’ care as a lifetime initiative, from the day they take their oaths until the day they are laid to rest.”
The $125 billion budget request, which has to be approved by Congress, includes $60.3 billion for discretionary spending ( mostly health care ) and $64.7 billion in mandatory funding ( mostly for disability compensation and pensions ).
“VA’s 2011 budget request covers many areas but focuses on three central issues that are of critical importance to our Veterans – easier access to benefits and services, faster disability claims decisions, and ending the downward spiral that results in Veterans’ homelessness,” Shinseki said.
Reducing Claims Backlog
The president’s budget proposal includes an increase of $460 million and more than 4,000 additional claims processors for Veterans benefits. This is a 27 percent funding increase over the 2010 level.
The 1,014,000 claims received in 2009 were a 75 percent increase over the 579,000 received in 2000. Shinseki said the Department expects a 30 percent increase in claims – to 1,319,000 – in 2011 from 2009 levels.
One reason for the increase is VA’s expansion of the number of Agent Orange-related illnesses that automatically qualify for disability benefits. Veterans exposed to the Agent Orange herbicides during the Vietnam War are likely to file additional claims that will have a substantial impact upon the processing system for benefits, the secretary said.
“We project significantly increased claims inventories in the near term while we make fundamental improvements to the way we process disability compensation claims,” Shinseki said.
Long-term reduction of the inventory will come from additional manpower, improved business practices, plus an infusion of $145 million in the proposed budget for development of a paperless claims processing system, which plays a significant role in the transformation of VA.
Automating the GI Bill
The budget proposal includes $44 million to complete by December 2010 an automated system for processing applications for the new Post-9/11 GI Bill. VA also plans to start development next year of electronic systems to process claims from other VA-administered educational programs.
The Post-9/11 GI Bill authorizes the most extensive educational assistance opportunity since the passage of the original GI Bill in 1944. Over $1.7 billion in regular Post-9/11 GI Bill benefit payments have been issued since the implementation of the program on Aug. 1, 2009. In 2011, VA expects the number of all education claims to grow by 32 percent over 2009, going from 1.7 million to 2.25 million.
“To meet this increasing workload and process education claims in a timely manner, VA has established a comprehensive strategy to develop industry-standard technologies to modernize the delivery of these important educational benefits,” Shinseki said.
Eliminating Homelessness
The budget proposal includes $4.2 billion in 2011 to reduce and help prevent homelessness among Veterans. That breaks down into $3.4 billion for core medical services and $799 million for specific homeless programs and expanded medical care, which includes $294 million for expanded homeless initiatives. This increased investment for expanded homeless services is consistent with the VA secretary’s established goal of ultimately eliminating homelessness among Veterans.
On a typical night, about 131,000 Veterans are homeless. They represent every war and generation, from the “Greatest Generation” to the latest generation of Veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. To date, VA operates the largest system of homeless treatment and assistance programs in the nation.
Targeting Mental Health, Preventing Suicides
“The 2011 budget proposal continues the department’s keen focus on improving the quality, access and value of mental health care provided to Veterans,” Shinseki said.
The spending request seeks $5.2 billion for mental health, an increase of $410 million ( or 8.5 percent ) over current spending, enabling expansion of inpatient, residential and outpatient mental health services, with emphasis on making mental health services part of primary care and specialty care.
The secretary noted that one-fifth of the patients seen last year in VA’s health care facilities had a mental health diagnosis, and that the department has added more than 6,000 new mental health professionals since 2005, bringing to 19,000 the number of employees dedicated to mental health care.
The budget request will enable the department to continue expanding its programs for post-traumatic stress disorder ( PTSD ) and traumatic brain injury ( TBI ), along with the diagnosis and treatment of depression, substance abuse and other mental health problems. Shinseki called PSTD treatment “central to VA’s mission.”
The proposed spending will continue VA’s suicide prevention program. Since July 2007, the department’s suicide prevention hotline has received nearly 225,000 calls from Veterans, active-duty personnel and family members. The hotline is credited with saving the lives of nearly 7,000 people.
Reaching Rural Veterans
For 2011, VA is seeking $250 million to strengthen access to health care for 3.2 million Veterans enrolled in VA’s medical system who live in rural areas. Rural outreach includes expanded use of home-based primary care and mental health.
A key portion of rural outreach – which shows promise for use with Veterans across the country – is VA’s innovative “telehealth” program. It links patients and health care providers by telephones and includes telephone-based data transmission, enabling daily monitoring of patients with chronic problems.
The budget provides an increase of $42 million for VA’s home telehealth program. The effort already cares for 35,000 patients and is the largest program of its kind in the world.
Serving Women Veterans
The 2011 budget provides $217.6 million to meet the gender-specific health care needs of women Veterans, an increase of $18.6 million ( or 9.4 percent ) over the 2010 level. Enhanced primary care for women Veterans remains one of the Department’s top priorities. The number of women Veterans is growing rapidly and women are increasingly using VA for their health care.
Shinseki said the expansion of health care programs for women Veterans will lead to higher quality care, increased coordination of care, enhanced privacy and dignity, and a greater sense of security among women patients.
Among the initiatives for women in the 2011 budget proposal are expanded health care services in Vet Centers, increased training for health care providers to advance their knowledge and understanding of women’s health issues, and implementing a peer call center and social networking site for women combat Veterans. This call center will be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Delivering World-Class Health Care
During 2011, VA expects to treat 6.1 million patients, who will account for more than 800,000 hospitalizations and 83 million outpatient visits.
The total includes 439,000 Veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, for whom $2.6 billion is included in the budget proposal. That’s an increase of $597 million – or 30 percent – from the current budget.
The proposed budget for health care includes:
- $6.8 billion for long-term care, an increase of $859 million ( or 14 percent ) over 2010. This amount includes $1.5 billion for non-institutional long-term care;
- Expanding access to VA health care system for more than 99,000 Veterans who were previously denied care because of their incomes;
- $590 million for medical and prosthetic research; and
- Continuing development of a “virtual lifetime electronic record,” a digital health record that will accompany Veterans throughout their lives.
VA is requesting $54.3 billion in advance appropriations for 2012 for health care, an increase of $2.8 billion over the 2011 enacted amount. Planned initiatives in 2012 include better leveraging acquisitions and contracting, enhancing the use of referral agreements, strengthening VA’s relationship with the Defense Department, and expanding the use of medical technology.
Preserving National Shrines
“VA remains steadfastly committed to providing access to a dignified and respectful burial for Veterans choosing to be buried in a VA national cemetery,” Shinseki said. “This promise requires that we maintain national cemeteries as shrines dedicated to the memory of those who served this nation in uniform.”
The requested $251 million for cemetery operations and maintenance will support more than 114,000 interments in 2011, a 3.8 percent increase over 2010. In 2011, the department will maintain 8,441 acres with 3.1 million gravesites. The budget request includes $37 million to clean and realign an estimated 668,000 headstones and repair 100,000 sunken graves.
Building for the Future
$1.15 billion requested for major construction for 2011 includes funding for medical facilities in New Orleans; Denver; Palo Alto, Calif.; Alameda, Calif.; and Omaha, Neb. Also budgeted for 2011 are major expansions and improvements to the national cemeteries in Indiantown Gap, Pa.; Los Angeles; and Tahoma, Wash., and new burial access policies that will provide a burial option to an additional 500,000 Veterans and enhance service in urban areas.
A requested budget of $468 million for minor construction in 2011 would fund a wide variety of improvements at VA facilities.
Popularity: 45% [?]
