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ARMED FORCES NEWS |
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The Government Accountability Office has made an initial report of an investigation requested by House Committee on Veterans' Affairs Chairman Steve Buyer, R-Ind., and members of the Senate. GAO blamed unrealistic assumptions, errors in estimates, insufficient data, and an unresponsive budget model for health care funding shortfalls at the Department of Veterans Affairs in fiscal years 2005 and 2006. GAO declared that the federal budgeting process itself, which uses information up to three or more years old, had contributed to shortfalls. Projections were understated for a number of reasons, including returning Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom soldiers and requirements for long-term care. The funding shortages, which were discovered by VA officials in the spring of 2005, were ultimately filled by supplemental funding. The GAO will continue its review of the process used by the administration to formulate the VA budget. (See next item.) EVANS, AKAKA, LAMBASTE VA BUDGETING Lane Evans, ranking Democratic member, House Committee on Veterans Affairs, says the Department of Veterans Affairs used "phantom claims to offset VA budget requests for health care. Basing his comments on a Government Accountability Office report issued Feb. 1 (previous item), he added that "while calling for the establishment of user fees and increased copayments for veterans seeking health care, and altogether barring at least 260,000 veterans from the (VA) health care system," the administration falsely claimed billions of dollars in unsubstantiated'management efficiencies.'" Democrat Daniel Akaka, Evans' counterpart on the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, said "It is distressing that VA's health care budget over the past three years has been built like a house of cards." Evans and Akaka stressed that replacing the Administration's savings claims in the VA budget would have averted the needs for the $1.3 billion supplemental request in 2005 and increases in pharmacy co-payments. |
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