| HOUSE PASSES
ADVANCE FUNDING FOR VA
The bill would allow Congress to
appropriate funds for VA health care programs one year in advance.
NOTE from Larry Scott, VA
Watchdog dot Org ... Advance funding is also called advance
appropriation. Use our search engine for a complete
background on the fight for
advance appropriation (
advance funding ) for the VA health care budget.
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Bill Seeks to End Delays in Veterans’ Care
By JAMES DAO
The House approved legislation on Tuesday that is intended to
prevent delays in federal financing for veterans’ health care
programs, a problem that has disrupted services provided by the
Department of Veterans Affairs for decades, officials say.
The bill, which has been a major lobbying priority of veterans’
organizations in Washington, would allow Congress to appropriate
funds for health care programs one year in advance.
Officials say that for 19 of the last 22 years, the department’s
budget has been approved late, usually because of fiscal wrangling
on Capitol Hill. As a result, veterans’ groups and officials say,
the directors of veterans’ health care centers and clinics have
often been unable to proceed on time with new services, staff
expansions or renovations.
“Our veterans pay the price with fewer doctors, longer waiting
times and more restricted access for the six million veterans
using V.A. health care,” said Representative Bob Filner, Democrat
of California and chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’
Affairs.
Under current rules, if a new budget is not in place by the start
of the federal fiscal year on Oct. 1, the Department of Veterans
Affairs is required to operate on its previous year’s budget.
Often, those budgets lacked money to pay for even existing
programs because of inflation, contractual increases and growing
caseloads.
 Programs
have often been postponed or canceled while hospitals and clinics
awaited their new budgets, officials said.
“If there were scheduled pay raises, we wouldn’t have sufficient
funds to maintain the status quo, because the pay raise would have
to be paid,” said Bob Perreault, a former director of veterans’
health centers in Atlanta, Philadelphia and Charleston, S.C. “That
means we would not buy equipment and not do maintenance projects.”
Veterans’ groups say the problem has become more troubling as
caseloads have grown with veterans returning from the wars in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
“When you have a flat-line budget, you can’t treat the new people
coming into the system, which leads to rationing,” said Peter
Dickinson, a consultant to Disabled American Veterans, an advocacy
group.
A similar bill sponsored by Senator Daniel K. Akaka, Democrat of
Hawaii and the chairman of the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, has
bipartisan support and is expected to pass the full Senate.
President Obama has endorsed the idea of advance appropriations
for veterans’ health care. In testimony before the House veterans
committee in March, Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said:
“The care our veterans receive should never be hindered by budget
delays. I share the president’s concern as well as his support for
advance appropriations as a way to provide uninterrupted care.”
In addition, the House Appropriations Committee approved a bill
that appropriates $48.2 billion for veterans’ medical care in the
2011 fiscal year.
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TOPICS:
veterans, veterans' benefits, VA, Department of Veterans' Affairs,
advance funding, advance appropriation |
