VA budget still not enough, group warns

[unhappycamper]

VA budget still not enough, group warns
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 10, 2009 17:10:22 EST

The biggest veterans budget in history is not big enough, warns the head of Veterans for Common Sense, a group that closely tracks health care issues for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Paul Sullivan, executive director of the group, said the $109 billion veterans’ budget approved Thursday by the House of Representatives and could come to a final vote soon in the Senate, “may fall short as much as 45 percent” in covering the added costs to the Veterans Affairs Department of treating veterans of the two ongoing operations.

VA funding is included in HR 3288, a consolidated appropriations bill covering many federal agencies.

Sullivan’s warning is based, in part, on a joint statement from the House and Senate appropriations committees that says the new budget includes money to provide medical care in fiscal 2010 for 419,000 veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom.

The Veterans Health Administration reported last year that it had provided medical care to a combined 480,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans by the end of July, and the number is certain to have risen since then, Sullivan noted.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/12/military_veteransbudget_criticism_121009w/