| Web Posted : 08/26/2003 5:06 PM
Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi said he is winning budget battles in Washington while struggling with growing demands for health care services.
Having a strong Veterans Affairs system in place will be crucial when the 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq return home, Principi told about 5,000 members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars today.
“Heroes will continue to emerge from wars of the 21st century,” Principi told members at their national convention.
Principi said President Bush has asked Congress to fund a $64 billion budget that would take effect Oct. 1, reflecting a 33 percent jump over a $48 billion budget in 2001, the fastest increase in the VA's history.
A Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) plan now being presented at public hearings seeks to streamline VA health care by closing older hospitals, including one in Waco, and building new ones in Orlando, Fla., Las Vegas and other areas where veteran populations have grown.
“By January, I hope to be able to adopt the plan or reject it in its entirety,” Principi said before his convention speech. “I'm not going to politicize it by saying, ‘Well, this state is fine but this state is not so good.' I'm not going to pick and choose.”
Veterans and others will be able to provide public input on the plan from 8:30 a.m. to noon Oct. 1 at the Convention Center. A commission will forward recommendations to Principi, who then could send the plan to Congress next year.
Among those likely to comment are Paul Gerth, a local veteran with a neurological disease. After 20 years in the Army, including tours of Europe and Korea, Gerth has had to endure a battery of exams by VA doctors in order to receive VA services, even though his records kept by his Army doctors were current, he said.
“They're sending people to see physicians when it's not necessary,” said Gerth, who fears closing the Waco facility could make it hard to get neurological or endocrinological services.
“This could be an ever-present problem” that could affect veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots, Gerth said.
The CARES plan and a broader set of goals released this week by the VA will help the nation embrace its returning veterans, said Principi, who has two sons who served in Iraq.
“We don't really know what's going to come out of the gulf yet,” he said. “We don't know if there are any long-term effects to low levels of exposure to sarin gas. The National Academy of Sciences is researching that now for me.”
“Remember the sandstorms? Those kids were breathing in a lot of sand, silica, maybe some pathogens,” he said. “We don't know five years from now what might happen. We may get inundated with claims for chronic respiratory ailment.”
To be prepared for the future, the VA has reduced pending disability-compensation and pension claims from 430,000 to 270,000 since Principi became secretary in early 2001, he said.
The number of eligible veterans rose from 3 million to 25 million in the past five years as Congress extended eligibility to veterans with medium incomes and no service injuries. To cope with the demand, the VA has tried to become less hospital-based and more centered on community clinics, private contracts and partnerships with the Defense Department to provide outpatient and in-home care, and wellness counseling that could prevent serious ailments.
“I believe that the VA has come an awful long way,” Principi said. “And I don't want to see it lose ground. Clearly one of the greatest challenges that this agency faces today is this burgeoning demand for health care.
“I know we are expending an exorbitant amount of the taxpayers' money in maintaining excess infrastructure because health care delivery has changed,” he said. “We're not in the bricks and mortar business. We're in the health care business.”
Principi said he also has tried to streamline procedures. Last month, the VA relaxed a rule that had required veterans to see a VA doctor before getting a drug prescription. Veterans who had waited at least 30 days to see a VA doctor were allowed to bypass that requirement.
The secretary said President Bush has told him he and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld must maintain close communications.
“President Bush, if he's told me and Secretary Rumsfeld once, he's told us a hundred times, ‘You two better break down the barriers between your two departments. It doesn't serve veterans well, it doesn't serve the military well and it doesn't save the American taxpayer well,’” Principi said. “So basically he has told us to do a better job of communicating and to have compatible information systems.”
“I'm proud to say we're making great progress,” he said.
shuddleston@express-news.net
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