VA Watchdog Stuff
cups, hats, shirts
click here to
support the site





Be sure to get all four
VA Watchdog dot Org
RSS feeds --
Daily VA
News Flashes
House CVA
Veterans' News
Senate CVA
Veterans' News
VA Press
Releases

Download your
free copy of the
2007 VA benefits
handbook here...

Social Bookmarking

 

BLOWBACK: SERVICE ORGS RESIST "YOUNG VETS" PRIORITY

FROM DOLE-SHALALA -- Sen. Bob Dole says older vets might

have to settle for less. DAV says, "Why should a 21-year-old

have priority over an 85-year-old veteran?"

It's something I thought I'd never see.

A group of changes in the VA care and disability benefits systems that pit young vets against old vets.

The Dole-Shalala Commission is way off-base with their recommendations.

They want to give more compensation, more benefits and priority to veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

What about the Vietnam vets?  And Gulf War?  Korea?  World War II?  And all in between?

The Dole-Shalala package that's coming to Congress is just plain wrong.  And, they're going to try to push it through by November 11 (Veterans Day).

Gerald T. Manar of the Veterans of Foreign Wars criticized the Dole-Shalala recommendations on disability compensation as “hollow” and too sketchy to implement.  That story here...
http://www.vawatchdog.org/07/nf07/
nfOCT07/nf102007-6.htm

The DAV, in their latest magazine, has an excellent piece on this.  In an article titled Turning Opportunity into Disappointment, Randy Reese, the DAV's National Service Director, says, "We will oppose the disappointing recommendations every step of the way and support those which truly help veterans."  This is a "must read" article and you can find it here... http://www.dav.org/news/magazine/
documents/magazine_sept_oct_07.pdf

In the news article below we find:  Sen. Bob Dole says older vets might have to settle for less.  And Dave Gorman of the DAV says, "Why should a 21-year-old have priority over an 85-year-old veteran?"

All veterans must work together to oppose these radical changes which will, in the long run, benefit no one.

For more about the Dole-Shalala Commission, use the VA Watchdog search engine...click here...
http://www.yourvabenefits.org/ses
search.php?q=dole+shalala&op=ph

Story here... http://www.nydailynews.com/
news/wn_report/2007/10/21/2007-10-21_
young_older_vets_fight_for_va_f
unds-1-3.html

Story below:

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

Young, older vets fight for VA funds

BY RICHARD SISK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

WASHINGTON - It's the fight nobody wanted - older vets competing with wounded troops from Iraq for scarce funding and hospital beds, with Bob Dole as referee.

The battle lines began forming last week at a Senate Veteran Affairs Committee hearing on revamping the overloaded military and Veterans Administration health care and disability payment systems.

"There's been some pushback," Dole said, from World War II, Korea and Vietnam vets to the reforms touted by the presidential commission he headed with former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.

"We front-loaded the recommendations" to focus on troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, said Dole, the former Senate Republican leader and presidential nominee.

"There's always the fear that somebody will lose something" when change comes, said Dole, a longtime advocate of VA reform who was severely wounded as a World War II Army lieutenant in Italy.

The fear for older vets is that the younger generation would go to the head of the line in the VA, where waits for appointments at regional offices can stretch to 177 days.

Another concern was with the recommendation for "quality of life" compensation that could lead to younger vets getting more money for disability payments.

"What we see is people trying to create a two-tier system, one for veterans of the global war on terror and one for everybody else," said Dave Gorman, executive director of the 1.5 million-member Disabled American Veterans.

Gorman, who lost both legs as an Army private in Vietnam, posed the question that Congress will have to answer as it decides on VA funding: "Why should a 21-year-old have priority over an 85-year-old veteran?"

Younger vets are also upset at the possibility of facing off against vets of wars past for money and hospital space.

"We shouldn't be fighting each other for priority," said Paul Rieckhoff, head of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Rieckhoff called for boosting the proposed VA budget, now about $80 billion, to accommodate all the generations.

But the 84-year-old Dole suggested that older vets might have to settle for less.

"I never thought I got enough money," Dole said, and if younger vets "do a little better than we did, that's okay. That's good, it shows we're making progress."

rsisk@nydailynews.com

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

Larry Scott  --

Don't forget to read all of today's VA News Flashes (click here)

Click here to make VA Watchdog dot Org your homepage

email Larry

(go back to VA Watchdog dot Org Home Page)

VA Watchdog Stuff
cups, hats, shirts
click here to
support the site