Politicians read this before self-destructing (Veterans falling through the cracks)

The recycled Pentagon types now merrily selling their "expertise" to the weapon-makers and the rest of the current crop of shakers and takers who make up today's military-industrial-congressional greed machine are as usual sucking up big bucks, while many of our vets continue to get the shaft. Also as usual.

Wesley Clark summed up what's going down in a recent campaign speech: "We've got veterans' hospitals closing; we've got people who have to drive six hours to get a checkup; we've got veterans that are waiting six months to get an appointment ... that's not health care."

If elected, Clark promises to add $2 billion to the vet health-care budget. "We've got to fix the veterans' issues here in America," he said. "We're going to put the full funding we need to get the Veterans Affairs to meet our ... former service members' needs."

Since 1996, the VA's workload has increased from 3 million to 7 million vets without a comparable increase in operating funds. There's presently neither the money nor the infrastructure to take care of all those who paid the hard price when Uncle Sam said, "I want you." Which is why the enrollment of thousands of eligible vets in the category designated as Priority Group 8 – non-service disabled vets and those with incomes higher than $24,000 a year – were dropped like a live grenade last year.

According to VA honcho Anthony Principi, this suspension affects only the lowest-priority group in the VA's eight-tier system – vets in Group 8. But he says Priority 8s already enrolled will be "grandfathered" and allowed to continue in the VA health-care system.

"Who is Principi to play God?" asks Vietnam vet Lawrence Tahler. "When is a vet not a vet, and why should these good men and women be penalized for not getting their paperwork in before some bureaucrat arbitrarily decides to change the system?"

"I'm a Priority 8 Vietnam vet who was denied enrollment," Donald Schlotz says. "As a result, I annually spend over $7,000 on health insurance for promised care that would otherwise be provided by the VA. It looks to me like the Bush administration is trying to save money at the expense of vets who were assured they'd have health care for life."

Millions of vets who agree with Schlotz are angry because they believe the Bush administration has looked the other way when it comes to the aging veteran population.

But Bush's $63.6 billion 2004 VA budget actually comes in at a whopping 7.7 percent increase over last year's allocation – the biggest VA increase in history. The bummer is, that's far from enough dough to do the job.

"This action against Priority 8 vets is outrageous," Schlotz says. "It's particularly distasteful that this now pits vets against each other for benefits, rather than providing benefits for all. Moreover, by 'grandfathering' some vets, it discriminates between similarly situated vets based on nothing other than when they applied for benefits."

The Priority 8s are the victims of a government that's forgotten George Washington's sage warning: "The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation."

While Clark has low-balled the money needed to get the VA program back on track, he's spot on when it comes to the 2004 election. Veterans – and there are millions of them from sea to shining sea – have vowed to hold our politicians' feet to the fire this time around to make sure they honor our nation's sacred obligation to the men and women whose sacrifices have made our country the freest in the world.

Principi recently said, "Our veterans deserve nothing less than the best a grateful nation has to offer."

Sounds good. But Principi, the president and Congress should be told that America's vets need action, not more glowing words. Payback begins at home. Our country's service heroes must be properly looked after before the rest of the world gets any more goodies. And certainly before the powers that be give another thought to colonizing the moon or Mars.

Col. David H. Hackworth, author of his new best-selling "Steel My Soldiers' Hearts," "Price of Honor" and "About Face," has seen duty or reported as a sailor, soldier and military correspondent in nearly a dozen wars and conflicts – from the end of World War II to the recent fights against international terrorism.

This might clear up some of these allegations. It is from the Dec 31 edition of National Review, and deals with the veterans as well as the combat pay allegation:

VETERANS' BENEFITS
The allegation: that Bush, at the height of the Iraq engagement, cut both the combat pay of active-duty servicemen and the medical benefits of veterans. "I've made it very clear that we need to support our troops, unlike President Bush," said Dean in late October, "who tried to cut their combat pay after they had been over there and he doubled their tour of duty; unlike President Bush, who tried to cut - successfully cut 164,000 veterans off their health-care benefits." Added Lieberman: "The Bush administration's decision to cut the pay of our troops in Iraq is unconscionable." And Kerry: "Walking away from our veterans is wrong and in a Kerry administration it will be a thing of the past."
The answer: The combat-pay allegation apparently stems from a single newspaper article, an August 14 report in the San Francisco Chronicle headlined, "Troops in Iraq face pay cut; Pentagon says tough duty bonuses are budget buster." Congressional Democrats and presidential candidates seized on the report, but the administration immediately announced that the Chronicle was simply wrong. "We are not going to reduce their compensation," said Pentagon personnel chief David Chu the day the report appeared. Chu explained that when Congress voted to increase the troops' pay, the Defense Department asked that the measure be taken out because it would extend bonus pay to troops who were not in Iraq or Afghanistan. "We have plenty of authority" to keep up combat pay, Chu said. After Chu's announcement, a spokesman for the Association of the U.S. Army, a military advocacy group, told Congressional Quarterly that he believed Chu's explanation and that the entire affair was "a tempest in a teapot." In any event, Congress decided to go ahead with the pay increase, and in late November, President Bush signed it into law.
As far as VA medical benefits are concerned, the charge stems from the administration's efforts to deal with soaring costs. After Congress loosened VA eligibility rules in the 1990s, extending coverage to those without service-related medical problems, VA enrollment went from 2.9 million in 1996 to 6.8 million today. Given those costs, the VA decided to impose a means test for the best-off veterans. A few years ago, Congress directed the VA to create priority categories for veterans, with Priority Group 1 being those most in need, and Priority Group 8 being those least in need; veterans in Priority Group 8 are those who are not being compensated for a military-related disability and have higher incomes than those in other groups. Facing a budget crunch, the VA decided to freeze Priority Group 8 benefits and exclude those veterans - about 164,000 of them - from the VA system this year (although it made other health benefits available). But the VA also "grandfathered" any Priority Group 8 veterans who were already in the system. The 164,000 veterans cited by Dean and others were never in the system, had no service-related medical problems, and were not cut off from benefits.

"Veterans – and there are millions of them from sea to shining sea – have vowed to hold our politicians' feet to the fire this time around to make sure they honor our nation's sacred obligation to the men and women whose sacrifices have made our country the freest in the world. "

Clark just went up a notch. He may be the most America first conservative in the race.

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We've been warned that you pro-Clark trolls might be hanging out here.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1057196/posts

You can't fool us.

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