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Web Posted : 05/21/2003 12:00 AM
The U.S. government is as determined
as ever to help veterans, especially the ones returning from Iraq, despite a
backlog of benefit claims and high demand for health care, Veterans Affairs
Secretary Anthony J. Principi said Tuesday.
"I just want veterans to be assured that we are doing as much as we can, and
will continue to have challenges but will continue to press forward,"
Principi said at Randolph AFB.
He later met with the Air Force Retiree Council, a 16-member panel of
military retirees from across the nation who gathered there to discuss
veterans issues.
Lately, against the backdrop of the war in Iraq, there has been much to
discuss. On Jan. 17, the Department of Veterans Affairs closed health-care
enrollment to veterans with at least medium incomes and no service-related
health problems.
A law that took effect in 1998 added those "Category 8" veterans, based on
income, residence and size of household, to seven higher-priority
categories.
Principi, who recommended suspending Category 8 enrollment during 2003, said
he hopes to someday bring those veterans back into the system, even though
the VA's patient enrollment grew from about 3 million veterans in 1996 to 7
million after the category was added.
"We could not sustain what was happening with the health-care system to the
extent that we have waiting lists in some parts of the country," said
Principi, whose nomination by President Bush was confirmed by the Senate in
January 2001.
"Service-connected disabled veterans who may have taken a bullet in the
spine in Vietnam were being put on waiting lists," he said. "I decided that
the morally correct, responsible decision was to suspend enrollment for
'Priority 8s.'"
He said he wants to be sure needs of poor veterans and those with service
injuries are addressed before enrollment is reinstated. Last year, before
the suspension, the VA enrolled 830,000 new veterans into its health-care
system.
Principi said the VA had a backlog of roughly 650,000 benefits claims,
including more than 400,000 disability compensation and pension claims, in
2001. Disability and pension claims are now down to 295,000, despite the
65,000 new claims each month.
Meanwhile, at a time when talks in Washington have focused on budget cuts,
Congress has expanded the overall VA budget from $48 billion to $65 billion
— an unprecedented jump — since 2001. And with 667 new outpatient clinics
opened in recent years, access to care for veterans is better than ever,
Principi said.
But the department faces challenges, including the return of military
personnel from Iraq and other nations affected by a war on terrorism. Caring
for them will be a top priority, but one that will challenge the VA
professionally because of "dangers of the relatively modern technological
battlefield."
"We don't know what the young men and women were breathing in," Principi
said. "Obviously, there were intense sandstorms, a lot of silica, (and) I
don't know whether there were any pathogens in the air. Those are the kinds
of issues that we have to be prepared to deal with, both from a treatment
side as well as a disability compensation side, to evaluate their
illnesses."
shuddleston@express-news.net
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