Bush's Christmas Present to our Veterans

[normalnoises]

http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df12232003.html

Bush Pays Lipservice to Vets, Then Slashes Their Health Care

Late last week President Bush visited combat veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center. During his visit, he said "We have made a commitment to the troops, and we have made a commitment to their loved ones, and that commitment is that we will provide excellent health care - excellent care - to anybody who is injured on the battlefield."1

His comments stand in stark contrast to the policies he has pushed - and the record he has amassed - as President. Just this year alone, the President "announced his formal opposition to a proposal to give National Guard and Reserve members access to the Pentagon's health-insurance system"- a slap in the face to thousands of troops, especially considering "a recent General Accounting Office report estimated that one of every five Guard members has no health insurance."2 The President also this year proposed to cut $1.5 billion (14%) out of funding for military family housing/medical facilities. This followed his 2002 budget which, according to major veterans groups, "fell $1.5 billion short" of adequately funding veterans care.3

This is not the first time the President has staged a photo-op to thank veterans at Walter Reed and then proposed policies that hurt veterans. A little less than a year ago, the President visited the medical hospital4, and then on the same day announced his proposal to cut off 164,000 veterans from the VA's prescription drug discount program.5

The result of the President's harsh treatment of veterans is that "more than 235,000 veterans are currently waiting 6 months or more for initial medical appointments" with "many veterans waiting 2 years just to be seen by a doctor."6 At Ft. Stewart, Georgia, UPI reported "hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait - sometimes for months - to see doctors."7 And CBS News reports that the administration appears, in some cases, to be denying benefits to soldiers wounded in Iraq. Specifically, many soldiers say they are seeing their pay and health benefits severely reduced after they are badly wounded.8

Sources:

President Bush Meets with Wounded Soldiers at Walter Reed, 12/18/2003.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031218-1.html

Gannett News Service, 10/23/2003.

Independent Budget, 01/07/2002.

President Bush Meets with Wounded Soldiers at Medical Center, 12/17/2003.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030117-8.html

"VA Cuts Some Veterans' Access to Health Care", Washington Post, 01/17/2003.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4064-2003Jan16

Independent Budget, Paralyzed Veterans of America.

http://www.pva.org/independentbudget/pdf/IB_04.pdf

"Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor", UPI, 10/17/2003.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031017-024617-1418r

"Wounded Troops Denied Benefits?", CBS News, 12/18/2003.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/18/eveningnews/main589380.shtml

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by normalnoises

http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df12232003.html

Bush Pays Lipservice to Vets, Then Slashes Their Health Care

Late last week President Bush visited combat veterans at Walter Reed Medical Center. During his visit, he said "We have made a commitment to the troops, and we have made a commitment to their loved ones, and that commitment is that we will provide excellent health care - excellent care - to anybody who is injured on the battlefield."1

His comments stand in stark contrast to the policies he has pushed - and the record he has amassed - as President. Just this year alone, the President "announced his formal opposition to a proposal to give National Guard and Reserve members access to the Pentagon's health-insurance system"- a slap in the face to thousands of troops, especially considering "a recent General Accounting Office report estimated that one of every five Guard members has no health insurance."2 The President also this year proposed to cut $1.5 billion (14%) out of funding for military family housing/medical facilities. This followed his 2002 budget which, according to major veterans groups, "fell $1.5 billion short" of adequately funding veterans care.3

This is not the first time the President has staged a photo-op to thank veterans at Walter Reed and then proposed policies that hurt veterans. A little less than a year ago, the President visited the medical hospital4, and then on the same day announced his proposal to cut off 164,000 veterans from the VA's prescription drug discount program.5

The result of the President's harsh treatment of veterans is that "more than 235,000 veterans are currently waiting 6 months or more for initial medical appointments" with "many veterans waiting 2 years just to be seen by a doctor."6 At Ft. Stewart, Georgia, UPI reported "hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait - sometimes for months - to see doctors."7 And CBS News reports that the administration appears, in some cases, to be denying benefits to soldiers wounded in Iraq. Specifically, many soldiers say they are seeing their pay and health benefits severely reduced after they are badly wounded.8

Sources:

President Bush Meets with Wounded Soldiers at Walter Reed, 12/18/2003.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/12/20031218-1.html

Gannett News Service, 10/23/2003.

Independent Budget, 01/07/2002.

President Bush Meets with Wounded Soldiers at Medical Center, 12/17/2003.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/01/20030117-8.html

"VA Cuts Some Veterans' Access to Health Care", Washington Post, 01/17/2003.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4064-2003Jan16

Independent Budget, Paralyzed Veterans of America.

http://www.pva.org/independentbudget/pdf/IB_04.pdf

"Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor", UPI, 10/17/2003.

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031017-024617-1418r

"Wounded Troops Denied Benefits?", CBS News, 12/18/2003.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/18/eveningnews/main589380.shtml

Dude you are such a conspiracy ridden tool.. Why don't you really find out whats going on before spewing your rechid anti-american bile......

Read lost one, careful no pictures so it can be tough...........

:laugh: Misleader.org Thats wher you get your info??? Priceless:laugh:

http://www.nationalreview.com/lowry/lowry200312180910.asp

Howard Dean and the boys might have just lost one of their favorite anti-Bush lines on the stump — "He can't even find Saddam Hussein" — but not to worry. Dean still has another biting criticism of Bush national-security policy echoed by other Democratic candidates as well — that President Bush has supposedly slashed veterans off of their benefits and cut combat pay. As it happens, these charges have as much merit as the can't-find-Saddam taunt in the wake of the dictator getting pulled from a hole.

Dean has said of Bush routinely on the campaign trail: "One night, Friday night — he hoped the media wouldn't notice — he announced that combat pay was being cut because 'mission accomplished.' One day last January he went to a Veterans Administration hospital and said that veterans deserve the best pay, the best health care that money could buy. That was the day after he cut 164,000 veterans off their health-care benefits. This president doesn't get that the defense of the United States depends on the men and women he sent to Iraq and depends on the veterans who came home."

In today's free-spending Washington, the charge that anyone is being cut off from anything or that any spending is being reduced has, shall we say, an inherent implausibility. Indeed, no one is being cut off from their veterans benefits.

Here's the background: For 80 years, the rule was that the VA would take care of veterans with medical problems related to their military service or veterans without the means to purchase their own health care. In the mid-1990s, Congress decided to open the VA health care to all veterans, prompting a flood of new entrants into the system. Today, the VA treats a million more patients than it did three years ago, for a total of about five million. This sure doesn't sound like cutting veterans off benefits, but maybe they reckon such things differently in Vermont.

Dean's charge does have a wisp of a connection to reality. Because the VA system was overwhelmed by a flood of new patients — many of them relatively well-off — it established a new rule saying that veterans with no medical problems relating to their service and an income above a certain threshold are not eligible for VA care. The rule affects an estimated 164,000 people. These are Dean's 164,000 veterans "cut off" from benefits. But they can't be cut off from benefits, because they never received them. The VA grandfathered in everyone already receiving care to make sure no one would be cut off.

The idea that the Bush administration is somehow stingy with the VA is simply absurd. The VA budget has increased by about a third, going from $48 billion a year to $64 billion a year. This year, the VA will provide educational assistance to more than 400,000 people, and guarantee home loans of another 300,000 people, with the total value of about $40 billion. If Dean thinks this is ungenerous, what would be his alternative — giving veterans lifetime everything-for-free cards?

Dean's combat-pay charge is just as deceptive. The Pentagon earlier this year opposed extending recent Bush-instituted increases in "imminent-danger pay" and "family-separation allowances." It wanted to maintain the current pay of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, but through different means. This was all rendered moot when Bush signed into law in November a bill preserving the imminent-danger and family-separation pay increases. So no cut in combat pay had been proposed or took place, but Dean goes his merry way, charging otherwise.

There's a lesson here about the recklessness of Dean and the other Democratic candidates who ape his anti-Bush rhetoric. But that these charges are presented by Dean as a telling critique of Bush national-security policy also demonstrates a certain lack of seriousness about foreign policy. Dean seems to imply that we are going to wage the war on terror with really, really generous veterans health-care benefits. Yeah, right — and we can't find Saddam Hussein.

[normalnoises]

Figures you have nothing to contribute except pointless immature retorts.

What makes you think I have any interest in dean and prove this is a conspiracy theory. Opem the links clueless one then READ them before you open your hole, otherwise forever shut it.

You are a fool.

[normalnoises]

:laugh: nationalreview.com Thats wher you get your info??? Priceless:laugh:

Read lost one, careful no pictures so it can be tough...........

Wounded Troops Denied Benefits?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/18/eveningnews/main589380.shtml

(CBS) Many wounded U.S. soldiers are treated at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where President Bush today awarded Purple Hearts to 21 soldiers.

But CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, wounded troops may return from war to find themselves in a different kind of battle — with the U.S. military.

A disabled soldier will never see combat again, but he might find himself fighting a new fight against the government's medical bureaucracy.

Lieutenant John Fernandez, who lost part of both legs in Iraq, knows he can no longer be a soldier, but he's not ready to leave the army.

"I personally don't think it's right to be forced out of the — the military and all of a sudden be forced to live on half of the pay that I was getting," he says.

Ryan Kelley, who lost his left leg below the knee, makes about $20,000 a year as a staff sergeant. Once he leaves the army, he will receive about $8,000 a year in benefits.

Fernandez is appealing his medical discharge. "I'm not gonna let myself be pushed around," he says.

He and his wife Kristen have become self-taught experts in the bureaucratic ins and outs.

"I can see how many soldiers can get confused," says Kristen Fernandez.

"I think that the military wants to get them off their hands," says David Gorman, who lost both legs in Vietnam.

Gorman is executive director of Disabled American Veterans, a group he says normally has easy access to wounded soldiers; but not this time.

"I don't know if it's a clouded secret about who's coming back, who's there, the nature of their disabilities, the nature of their wounds or not but there is not the kind of unfettered access that we used to have at Walter Reed," says Gorman.

A spokesman for Walter Reed Army Medical Center says the restricted access is the result of post 9/11 security concerns and new federal guidelines protecting patient privacy, which by coincidence took effect just as the war in Iraq was starting.

"We can't do our job which means in many cases, I believe personally, that there's just an outright denial of benefits coming to these young men and women because they simply don't know about it," says Gorman.

The army cannot be expected to keep badly disabled soldiers on active duty and no one is suggesting they're deliberately being kept in the dark. But even inadvertently denying them benefits is a wound they shouldn't have to suffer.

------------------------------------------------------

Sick, wounded U.S. troops held in squalor

By Mark Benjamin

UPI Investigations Editor

Published 10/17/2003 3:36 PM

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031017-024617-1418r

FORT STEWART, Ga., Oct. 17 (UPI) -- Hundreds of sick and wounded U.S. soldiers including many who served in the Iraq war are languishing in hot cement barracks here while they wait -- sometimes for months -- to see doctors.

The National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers' living conditions are so substandard, and the medical care so poor, that many of them believe the Army is trying push them out with reduced benefits for their ailments. One document shown to UPI states that no more doctor appointments are available from Oct. 14 through Nov. 11 -- Veterans Day.

"I have loved the Army. I have served the Army faithfully and I have done everything the Army has asked me to do," said Sgt. 1st Class Willie Buckels, a truck master with the 296th Transportation Company. Buckels served in the Army Reserves for 27 years, including Operation Iraqi Freedom and the first Gulf War. "Now my whole idea about the U.S. Army has changed. I am treated like a third-class citizen."

Since getting back from Iraq in May, Buckels, 52, has been trying to get doctors to find out why he has intense pain in the side of his abdomen since doubling over in pain there.

After waiting since May for a diagnosis, Buckels has accepted 20 percent of his benefits for bad knees and is going home to his family in Mississippi. "They have not found out what my side is doing yet, but they are still trying," Buckels said.

One month after President Bush greeted soldiers at Fort Stewart -- home of the famed Third Infantry Division -- as heroes on their return from Iraq, approximately 600 sick or injured members of the Army Reserves and National Guard are warehoused in rows of spare, steamy and dark cement barracks in a sandy field, waiting for doctors to treat their wounds or illnesses.

The Reserve and National Guard soldiers are on what the Army calls "medical hold," while the Army decides how sick or disabled they are and what benefits -- if any -- they should get as a result.

Some of the soldiers said they have waited six hours a day for an appointment without seeing a doctor. Others described waiting weeks or months without getting a diagnosis or proper treatment.

The soldiers said professional active duty personnel are getting better treatment while troops who serve in the National Guard or Army Reserve are left to wallow in medical hold.

"It is not an Army of One. It is the Army of two -- Army and Reserves," said one soldier who served in Operation Iraqi Freedom, during which she developed a serious heart condition and strange skin ailment.

A half-dozen calls by UPI seeking comment from Fort Stewart public affairs officials and U.S. Forces Command in Atlanta were not returned.

Soldiers here estimate that nearly 40 percent of the personnel now in medical hold were deployed to Iraq. Of those who went, many described clusters of strange ailments, like heart and lung problems, among previously healthy troops. They said the Army has tried to refuse them benefits, claiming the injuries and illnesses were due to a "pre-existing condition," prior to military service.

Most soldiers in medical hold at Fort Stewart stay in rows of rectangular, gray, single-story cinder block barracks without bathrooms or air conditioning. They are dark and sweltering in the southern Georgia heat and humidity. Around 60 soldiers cram in the bunk beds in each barrack.

Soldiers make their way by walking or using crutches through the sandy dirt to a communal bathroom, where they have propped office partitions between otherwise open toilets for privacy. A row of leaky sinks sits on an opposite wall. The latrine smells of urine and is full of bugs, because many windows have no screens. Showering is in a communal, cinder block room. Soldiers say they have to buy their own toilet paper.

They said the conditions are fine for training, but not for sick people.

"I think it is disgusting," said one Army Reserve member who went to Iraq and asked that his name not be used.

That soldier said that after being deployed in March he suffered a sudden onset of neurological symptoms in Baghdad that has gotten steadily worse. He shakes uncontrollably.

He said the Army has told him he has Parkinson's Disease and it was a pre-existing condition, but he thinks it was something in the anthrax shots the Army gave him.

"They say I have Parkinson's, but it is developing too rapidly," he said. "I did not have a problem until I got those shots."

First Sgt. Gerry Mosley crossed into Iraq from Kuwait on March 19 with the 296th Transportation Company, hauling fuel while under fire from the Iraqis as they traveled north alongside combat vehicles. Mosley said he was healthy before the war; he could run two miles in 17 minutes at 48 years old.

But he developed a series of symptoms: lung problems and shortness of breath; vertigo; migraines; and tinnitus. He also thinks the anthrax vaccine may have hurt him. Mosley also has a torn shoulder from an injury there.

Mosley says he has never been depressed before, but found himself looking at shotguns recently and thought about suicide.

Mosley is paying $300 a month to get better housing than the cinder block barracks. He has a notice from the base that appears to show that no more doctor appointments are available for reservists from Oct. 14 until Nov. 11. He said he has never been treated like this in his 30 years in the Army Reserves.

"Now, I would not go back to war for the Army," Mosley said.

Many soldiers in the hot barracks said regular Army soldiers get to see doctors, while National Guard and Army Reserve troops wait.

"The active duty guys that are coming in, they get treated first and they put us on hold," said another soldier who returned from Iraq six weeks ago with a serious back injury. He has gotten to see a doctor only two times since he got back, he said.

Another Army Reservist with the 149th Infantry Battalion said he has had real trouble seeing doctors about his crushed foot he suffered in Iraq. "There are not enough doctors. They are overcrowded and they can't perform the surgeries that have to be done," that soldier said. "Look at these mattresses. It hurts just to sit on them," he said, gesturing to the bunks. "There are people here who got back in April but did not get their surgeries until July. It is putting a lot on these families."

The Pentagon is reportedly drawing up plans to call up more reserves.

In an Oct. 9 speech to National Guard and reserve troops in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Bush said the soldiers had become part of the backbone of the military.

"Citizen-soldiers are serving in every front on the war on terror," Bush said. "And you're making your state and your country proud."

-0-

Mark Benjamin can be contacted at mbenjamin@upi.com

------------------------------------------------------

VA Cuts Some Veterans' Access to Health Care

Huge Backlog, Long Waits Prompt Decision

By Edward Walsh

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, January 17, 2003; Page A21

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A4064-2003Jan16

http://www.pva.org/independentbudget/pdf/IB_04.pdf

The Department of Veterans Affairs announced yesterday that it is immediately cutting off access to its health care system to some higher-income veterans, a move the agency estimated will affect about 164,000 veterans who were expected to enroll in the system during the current fiscal year.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony J. Principi said he decided to restrict access to the VA health care system because of a growing backlog of about 200,000 veterans who have to wait an average of six months before receiving their first treatment at a VA health care facility.

The growth in the number of veterans enrolling in the VA system "is eating up all of our marginal capacity," Principi said in an interview. "Our clinics, our medical facilities are full."

The restrictions, which take effect today, apply to what the agency calls Category 8 veterans, the lowest priority in health care. These are veterans with relatively high incomes who do not suffer from military service-related disabilities or health problems. Category 8 income levels vary depending on geographic location, but Principi said generally the restrictions will apply to veterans with annual incomes of $30,000 to $35,000 or higher.

The restrictions will apply only to new enrollees and will not affect the 1.4 million Category 8 veterans who currently receive health care from the VA, he said.

Principi is required by law to set eligibility rules for the VA health care system every year, and the restrictions apply only to this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. But in the interview, he indicated that unless there is a reduction in the patient backlog, the restrictions will remain in place longer. "I would like to reopen enrollment if I can, but not at the expense of meeting our obligations to the highest-priority veterans," he said.

Principi informed leaders of veterans groups of his decision yesterday morning. Spokesmen for the groups said they understood why the restrictions were being imposed, but they lashed out at Congress for what they called inadequate funding of VA health care. "Without proper funding, the secretary is never going to get [the backlog] down, so what he has done is to make the tough business decision," said Bob Wallace, executive director of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. "If they can't take care of them, it's unconscionable to let them continue to enroll. The real bad guys in this is the Congress because they haven't fully funded the VA. I don't want to see anybody excluded from care, but we can't allow these false expectations and these lines to get longer and longer."

Historically, the VA's health care mission has been to treat veterans with service-related health problems and low incomes, and those needing special services. But that changed when Congress enacted legislation in 1996 opening the system to all veterans. That year, the VA health care system treated 2.9 million veterans. Last year, the number of patients had swelled to 4.2 million.

The largest segment of those entering the system are relatively high-income veterans who fall into Category 8. Principi said more than half of the 830,000 veterans who enrolled last year were classified as Category 8.

In an attempt to soften the effects of the restrictions, Principi also announced that under an agreement with the Health and Human Services Department, veterans who are eligible for Medicare and have been denied access to the VA health care system can still be treated at VA facilities, with Medicare reimbursing the department. He said he expects the program to begin operating later this year.

Principi also said President Bush will ask Congress to increase VA health care spending by $1.9 billion, to $27.5 billion, for the next fiscal year.

Apparently misleader.org backs their words.

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by normalnoises

Figures you have nothing to contribute except pointless immature retorts.

What makes you think I have any interest in dean and prove this is a conspiracy theory. Opem the links clueless one then READ them before you open your hole, otherwise forever shut it.

You are a fool.

Your mother is a FOOL for not swallowing you....

Read what the article says... It states that a BIG part of VA benefits are given to "well off" individuals and this is where the pull back is occuring.. Now I know you're as sharp as a dildo when it comes to business sense so you couldn't fathom that the program is flawed especially when it's paying for services for people that are not in need of it....

Think about this for one hippie second OK? If you provide to every veteran even those that were NOT hurt in combat and to people are financially capable of taken care of themselves don't you get less from the 64 BILLION provided for VA benefits?? See Mr Hippie the way you fix a business model is elliminate waste not throw more money at it....

The idea that the Bush administration is somehow stingy with the VA is simply absurd. The VA budget has increased by about a third, going from $48 billion a year to $64 billion a year. This year, the VA will provide educational assistance to more than 400,000 people, and guarantee home loans of another 300,000 people, with the total value of about $40 billion. If Dean thinks this is ungenerous, what would be his alternative — giving veterans lifetime everything-for-free cards?

[normalnoises]

Originally posted by mr mahs

Your mother is a FOOL for not swallowing you....

Your mother is a fool for not aborting you. Now put your lips back on my dick where they belong.

Read what the article says... It states that a BIG part of VA benefits are given to "well off" individuals and this is where the pull back is occuring.. Now I know you're as sharp as a dildo when it comes to business sense so you couldn't fathom that the program is flawed especially when it's paying for services for people that are not in need of it....

Think about this for one hippie second OK? If you provide to every veteran even those that were NOT hurt in combat and to people are financially capable of taken care of themselves don't you get less from the 64 BILLION provided for VA benefits?? See Mr Hippie the way you fix a business model is elliminate waste not throw more money at it....

The idea that the Bush administration is somehow stingy with the VA is simply absurd. The VA budget has increased by about a third, going from $48 billion a year to $64 billion a year. This year, the VA will provide educational assistance to more than 400,000 people, and guarantee home loans of another 300,000 people, with the total value of about $40 billion. If Dean thinks this is ungenerous, what would be his alternative — giving veterans lifetime everything-for-free cards?

And where did Rich Lowrey and National Review get their info from??? THEY HAVE NOTHING TO BACK THEIR WORDS AND YOU KNOW IT IDIOT! THEY LIE LIKE YOU LIE!

And of course you ignore my last post.

Now continue to suck my dick.

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by normalnoises

:s.

Read your own articles you TOOL...

The growth in the number of veterans enrolling in the VA system "is eating up all of our marginal capacity," Principi said in an interview. "Our clinics, our medical facilities are full."

The restrictions will apply only to new enrollees and will not affect the 1.4 million Category 8 veterans who currently receive health care from the VA, he said.

Historically, the VA's health care mission has been to treat veterans with service-related health problems and low incomes, and those needing special services. But that changed when Congress enacted legislation in 1996 opening the system to all veterans. That year, the VA health care system treated 2.9 million veterans. Last year, the number of patients had swelled to 4.2 million.

You don't even read your own articles WOW the LSD is rotting your brain HIPPIE boy.... Why don't you go play your

GEE-TAR at the mall to make some extra money and get out of your parents house....

:laugh: