By Arthur H. Wilson
National Adjutant
Disabled American Veterans
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony J. Principi has described the current state of veterans health care as "the perfect storm” gathering on the horizon.
As depicted in a hit movie based on the best-selling book, The Perfect Storm, by Sebastian Junger, a commercial fishing boat and its crew of six were lost in one of the worst maritime disasters of modern times. In the fall of 1991, a cold front was building off Canada, a major tempest was brewing over the Great Lakes, and a hurricane was developing near Bermuda. These three storm fronts would eventually collide off the Grand Banks, where the fishing boat Andrea Gail was working. This collision created a massive disturbance in the atmosphere known as "the perfect storm,” a phenomenon rarely seen by meteorologists.
The "storm systems” gathering over veterans health care are a dramatic increase in the number of veterans enrolling in the Department of Veterans Affairs, skyrocketing medical costs, and decades of inadequate, inflation-eroded appropriations.
Any one of these powerful forces swirling around on its own is bad enough, but when all three are on a collision course toward the others, the consequences could be devastating.
As the President's Task Force to Improve Health Care Delivery for Our Nation's Veterans noted in its 2003 final report, there is a significant mismatch in VA between demand and available funding. If left unresolved, the report warns, this imbalance will delay veterans' access to care and could threaten the quality of VA health care.
That assessment amounts to a storm forecast if there ever was one.
We've already had a taste of what may lie ahead: hundreds of thousands of veterans waiting six months or longer to see a doctor and hundreds of thousands more unable to enroll for VA health care. Why? Because for decades the VA hasn't had the resources to treat those already in the system, even before Congress opened enrollment in 1998.
In the years since open enrollment, the VA has been forced to do more with less. Even though Congress has increased discretionary appropriations for veterans health care, the funding levels have not kept pace with inflation, let alone the sharp influx of veterans into the system.
There is widespread agreement that the funding system, not VA health care, is in need of fundamental reform. However, there are differences of opinion on just how that should be done.
In its final report, the presidential task force called for full funding of the VA health care system for enrolled veterans. It also recommended changing the funding process, by using a mandatory funding mechanism, or other changes in the process to achieve full funding.
From the Disabled American Veterans' perspective, the way to address the mismatch identified by the task force is to determine just how much it will cost to take care of every veteran enrolled for health care and guarantee that the full amount will be available to the VA to meet that need.
Legislation to close the gap between funding and demand for veterans health care has been introduced in the Senate and in the House. The Senate measure is the Veterans Health Care Funding Guarantee Act (S. 50); the House bill is the Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act (H.R. 2318).
It is crucial that guaranteed funding legislation be enacted this year to ensure that all eligible veterans — including those injured in Operation Iraqi Freedom and the war on terror — have access to timely, quality health care.
Guaranteed funding would eliminate the year-to-year uncertainty about resources that has prevented the VA from being able to adequately plan for and meet the growing needs of veterans seeking treatment.
Anything short of guaranteed full funding will only make the veterans health care crisis worse. And like the tiny Andrea Gail caught in open waters unable to weather the destructive forces bearing down on her, America's sick and disabled veterans may not survive the perfect storm that threatens the VA health care system.
###
|
Printer-Friendly Version