A vote for John Kerry is a vote for a well-manicured, self-inflating gas bag.
Posted on 10/04/2004 6:24:48 AM PDT by NotchJohnson
ANOTHER KERRY LIE. THIS ONE ABOUT HEALTH CARE FOR VETERANS
Actually ... Kerry is getting quite a lot of help from his lapdog, Sad Max Cleland on this one. You've heard it, I'm sure, and since there has been very little actual reporting on the facts I would guess you believe it. The lie is that the Bush Campaign is cutting health care services to veterans.
You'll hear about this in more detail on the Boortz Show today, but here are some quick facts from The Wall Street Journal for you to digest.
When Bush took office there were 3.8 million veterans relying on the government for health care. At that time the waiting list for an initial visit or a referral to a specialist was six months or more and there were 300,000 veterans on the list. Today there are 5 million vets relying on government health care. There are 3,000 on the wait list, a 99% reduction. Four years ago the Veterans Administration spent $48 billion on health care. Today that figure is $70 million. VA medical spending is up over four years from $20.2 billion to $26.9 billion. So ... it would seem that there is a bit of lying going on with Sad Max and The Poodle. The Wall Street Journal reported the true facts. Most newspapers won't, and you sure won't see the other side presented on any of the broadcast news channels.
We are in the military, hubby is Air Force, SIL works for the VA. Have many nephews in several branches. Everything has gone up in the military. There are no cuts. Not in the VA and certainly not for active duty. We have never had more. If there is so much concern for us than leave it as it is! Agreed, the huge increases in military benefits since 2000 needs better exposure.
sKerry voted NO on $1.3 Billion in Veterans healthcare...part of the infamous $87 Billion he voted for, before he voted against.
We area military family. Everything has gone up and life couldn't be better. Our loved ones are in the Navy because they want to be. It is worth the long hours and family separation to know that we are helping to keep our country safe. We love the CIC.
There must be some mistake. Kerry would never, never tell a lie. He is a kind, honest, Dimolcrap.
Restructuring facilities will enhance veterans health care: in a shift from inpatient to outpatient care, VA proposes closing seven hospitals and smaller facilities at estimated savings of $400 million a year.
VFW Magazine, Feb, 2004 by Janie Blankenship
IN the changing face of VA health care, seven VA hospitals from Canandaigua, N.Y., to Livermore, Calif., will most likely close their doors. The proposed hospital closures are the result of VA's Capital Assets Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) plan.
CARES aims to close, realign and enhance current veterans hospitals and facilities across the nation during the next 20 years. The seven hospitals proposed for closure are: Livermore, Calif.; Waco, Texas; Gulfport, Miss.; Lexington, Ky., Brecksville, Ohio; Pittsburgh and Canandaigua, N.Y.
CARES is designed to provide more outpatient care, which will decrease the number of long-term visits to VA hospitals. It also is a way of addressing veteran population shifts in recent years.
VA wants to close some of the unneeded or least-used facilities that a General Accounting Office report says costs more than $1 million a day to operate--$400 million a year. The money would then be redirected to places where veterans most need health care.
"We'll either be on the cutting edge of medicine in the 21st century or stay on the trailing edge of the past century," said Anthony Principi, secretary of Veterans Affairs. "We have a responsibility to make changes, much like the private sector has to its systems, and to make sure the extraordinary amount of dollars the American people send us are being spent wisely," he told Air Force magazine.
Furthermore, patients are seeking outpatient care more than inpatient, so there is less need for so many hospitals.
In 1994, VA began shortening or eliminating hospital stays for injuries and illnesses that could be treated at doctors' offices or at clinics.
From 1994 through 1998, a VA study was conducted at VA's Houston Center for Quality Care and Utilization Studies to determine if outpatient care was equally effective. Released last October, the results of the study were astounding to some medical experts like Dr. Eric Schneider of Harvard University's School of Public Health.
"If you'd asked me 10 years ago if you could cut in half the hospital stays in America, I don't think I would have answered yes," he told the New York Times. "Now I can see we can do that."
Studying the medical records of 342,000 veterans, researchers found that hospital stays fell by 50% and outpatient care increased during the years of the study.
"These findings endorse VA's ongoing reorganization to improve health care for veterans;' Principi said. "The restructuring has maintained the quality of care, while allowing us to care for more veterans."
At press time, the CARES Commission was expected to provide Principi with its final recommendations in late January. The VA secretary said he hopes to announce his restructuring plan within a month of accepting the report and to get started this year.
"If I find there are problems, I will send it back" he said. "But once this process is completed, I'll accept it as a national plan, or I will reject it."
Proposal Meets Opposition
In times of change, resistance by opponents is expected. Veterans, employees and communities all will be affected by the proposed realignment. Some veterans assume they will no longer have access to VA health care, employees are concerned about their jobs and communities worry about the economy.
These factors all have been given consideration, said Everett Alvarez, chairman of the CARES Commission. Veterans living in those areas where hospitals may close will still have the same access to health care they did when the facilities were open.
In Waco, for example, inpatient care would be transferred to VA hospitals in nearby Temple and Austin. Outpatient services would be realigned to a newly established clinic in the Waco area. Last year in Waco, some 17,000 patients sought outpatient care and inpatient numbers peaked at only 1,800.
In spite of these statistics, a task force of veterans and business leaders in Waco remain concerned about the 800 employees. But most of those workers will have new jobs at the Olin E. Teague Veterans Center in Temple. Furthermore, about 200 would remain in Waco to staff the new outpatient clinic there.
"All of our employees will have jobs," Liz Crossan, a spokeswoman for the Central Texas VA system, told the Waco Tribune-Herald.
At a Commission hearing in October, Rep. Chet Edwards (D-Texas) spoke out against the closure of the Waco facility: "How do we explain to citizens in a military-oriented district that is sacrificing so much during this time of war that our nation can afford to build new hospitals in Iraq but we cannot afford to keep the Waco VA open?"
Similarly, in Canandaigua protests are evident. Rallies and picketers call on VA to "care for veterans" and "remember the veterans."
The current plan calls for closing this facility and relocating 248 inpatient, mental health and nursing home beds to Syracuse, Buffalo, Albany, Batavia and Bath. A new outpatient clinic would be built in the Finger Lakes region to replace Canandaigua's 171-acre campus.
This is a move that could potentially save $24 million a year, according to William Feeley, director of the veterans hospital network in upstate New York. Additionally, census reports cite decreasing numbers of veterans in this area, unlike Las Vegas (where a new hospital will be built), which is bursting with veterans.
VFW Monitors Situation
Bill Bradshaw, director of VFW's National Veterans Service (NVS), said VFW will continue to closely monitor the CARES proposal to see that it's in the best interests of veterans.
"The VFW policy is not to oppose any closure or mission change at VA medical centers until we look at each situation. individually and with local VFW input" Bradshaw said. "We know that many of the local VFW leaders have given excellent input to the CARES Commission."
He noted that no matter what happens, VA is responsible for making sure that if a facility is closed, veterans receive quality, timely and accessible health care.
For updates on CARES, be sure to visit its Web site at: www.va.gov/cares, or contact NVS's Tactical Assessment Center at (800) VFW-1899.
What You Need to Know About CARES
The draft report of the CARES plan includes the following recommendations:
* Closing hospitals in Brecksville, Ohio; Canandaigua, N.Y.; Gulfport, Miss.; Lexington, Ky.; Livermore, Calif.; Waco, Texas; and Pittsburgh.
* Building hospitals in Las Vegas; and Orlando, Fla., due to an increasing population of veterans in those areas.
* Establishing new centers for the blind in Biloxi, Miss.; and Long Beach, Calif.
* Opening 48 new outpatient clinics nationwide.
* Creating spinal injury centers in Denver; Little Rock, Ark.; Minneapolis; and either Albany or Syracuse, N.Y.
COPYRIGHT 2004 Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group
Max needs his air supply shut off and put on a skate-board for better mobility. Democrats only have fear-mongering as their message and lies.
i just had this discussion with a co-worker, she took kerry at his word, i volunteer at the VA in St.paul mn once a week or so, i will attest that it is much better funded than when i was going through hospital corpsman "A" school back in 95. if anything the funding is getting stretched thinner by the addition of programs and the amount of vietnam era vets that are to be blunt, just getting old.
Well people are under the impression that Bush has cut teh military. How this stuff gets legs is beyond me.
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