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Tuesday,
March 22, 2005
Local
VA committee waiting to start work
By SAMANTHA ROTH
Times Staff Writer
sroth@fltimes.com
CANANDAIGUA — A meeting
schedule has yet to be determined for the nine-person advisory
committee formed to offer recommendations about the future of the
Veterans Affairs Medical Center.
The committee, appointed by former VA Secretary Anthony F.
Principi, will work with independent contractor Price Waterhouse
Coopers to determine appropriate sites for a proposed long-term care
complex and outpatient clinic at the Canandaigua site.
Recommendations will be presented to Department of Veterans Affairs
Secretary Jim Nicholson, who will then make the final decision.
The group is chaired by retired Rep. Amory Houghton Jr., of
Corning, and includes five local people: longtime veterans advocate
Ralph Calabrese; Canandaigua Town Supervisor Sam Casella; Yates
County Veterans Service Office Director Earle Gleason; Finger Lakes
Community College President Dr. Daniel T. Hayes; and Ontario County
Office for the Aging Director Helen Sherman.
“[The meetings] were supposed to start in February, but
obviously February’s gone and most of March,” Gleason said, adding
that he’s disappointed about the delay. “I would have liked to see
it start on time, so we can alleviate the community’s concern about
the hospital’s future.”
The hospital was pegged for closure in early 2003 by the
Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services process, which is
aimed at streamlining the VA healthcare network and moving care
centers to address population shifts.
Houghton, Calabrese and Casella have been among the thousands
of local officials, veterans, residents and VA workers who have
fought to keep the hospital open. After nearly a year of public
protest, Principi announced in May that VA medical services would
stay in Canandaigua, although the facility itself might be changed.
Closing the local medical center would have sent its roughly
200 inpatients and 25,000 enrolled outpatients to more distant VA
hospitals in Bath, Batavia, Buffalo, and Syracuse and cut about 800
jobs.
VA network public affairs officer Kathleen Hidder said this
morning that the advisory committee will host four to five meetings
to hear from community members and stakeholders.
She said the process has been delayed but not indefinitely,
adding that while the committee had expected to start work by April,
they were specifically told by VA officials that there was no
official start date.
The Department of Veterans Affairs needed extra time to ensure
that Price Cooper Waterhouse would have a consistent analysis and
methodology for each of the 18 advisory committees formed across the
country, Hidder said.
“I would say very soon we’re expecting to hear of a date [ to
being the meetings],” Hidder said.
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Partisan Disagreement Stalls Committee's 'Views and Estimates' - Budget
Battle Heats Up
By Toni Johnson, CQ Staff
The House Veteran's Affairs Committee adjourned a meeting on the committee's
fiscal 2006 budget "views and estimates" without an agreement Thursday, after a
heated debate.
The panel's chairman, Steve Buyer, R-Ind., said that members and staff would
continue to work up until Tuesday, the deadline for committees to submit their
views to the House Budget Committee.
Buyer said that if no agreement between the majority and minority could be
reached, then it was possible that the panel would send competing letters,
outlining Republican and Democratic views, to the Budget Committee.
"The time line here is very challenging," Buyer said. "We are going to take
everybody's views and formulate a product. We will either come to agreement or
each send a letter."
The panel's ranking Democrat, Lane Evans of Illinois, said that he would prefer
a bipartisan proposal, but that if the majority's opinion was close to the Bush
administration's budget priorities, "that's not going to be possible."
Evans also said that getting a final proposal next Tuesday left "virtually no
time to review it." He argued that the committee should strive to reach
agreement at its Thursday session.
But Buyer stressed that there was a lot of work that could get done over the
next five or six days.
The panel's minority came to the meeting armed with a written budget proposal
and Democrats complained that they had not seen the majority's views.
"They did not come to the table with it," said Geoffrey K. Collver, panel's
spokesman for the minority. "We were flying blind."
The GOP-run panel's spokesman, Laura J. Zuckerman, said a written majority
proposal was being circulated "in-house."
Democratic Proposal
Much of the meeting was spent debating the details of the Democrats' budget
priorities.
For example, the Democrats propose an overall increase of $3.4 billion over the
president's fiscal 2006 budget request. The total would include $2.6 billion for
additional discretionary spending and $800 million for mandatory spending. The
president requested $70.8 billion in mandatory and discretionary spending for
veterans programs for fiscal 2006.
One of the biggest points of contention had to do with a Democratic proposal to
eliminate the proposed enrollment fee and not raise the co-payment for Veterans
Administration (VA) healthcare for veterans that are considered the lowest
priority.
President Bush has proposed a $250 fee and a $15 co-payment for veterans who
fall into the lowest two priority categories under the department's ranking
system. Currently there is no enrollment fee and the co-payment is $7.
Evans said the president's proposal would preclude many veterans from
participating because they could not afford the enrollment fee.
Buyer said that eliminating the enrollment fee and lowering the co-payment would
lead to a system where the military retiree, who served 20 years, was paying
more than someone who did a single tour of duty.
Other Republicans on the committee said they recognized that providing
accessible healthcare was important and were willing to consider lowering either
the proposed enrollment or the proposed co-pay increase.
"There's room for compromise," Henry E. Brown Jr., R-S.C. said, noting that the
with multiple doctors and prescriptions, a year of such fees could be more than
the average veteran could absorb.
Panel members were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the president's
proposal to redefine eligibility for veterans in nursing homes. The
administration proposed cutting the number of people served under the program by
more than half.
The minority proposed adding $269 million to the budget for the program while
Buyer suggested $239 million.
But on other issues the meeting was at times contentious ,as members debated the
Democrats' proposed increases for prosthetics, mental health, health care
facilities and increases in full-time positions at the VA.
Republicans on the panel were critical several of the minority proposals but
often offered no counter proposal.
Among the specifics offered by Democrats were increases over fiscal 2005
appropriations, including:
* $1.4 billion for medical services to address increased payroll, workload
and other "uncontrollables."
* $300 million for mental health initiative, $200 million more than the
president's 2006 proposal.
* $200 million for prosthetics and amputee care programs, double the
administration's proposal for fiscal 2006.
* $200 million to allow additional veterans to enroll in the VA's healthcare
system. The VA currently bars new enrollment for the veterans who meet a certain
income test.
* $67 million in additional funds for prosthetic research. The administration
wants to cut the program by $9 million.
Source: CQ Committee Coverage
Gavel-to-gavel coverage and votes of every markup on Capitol Hill.
A s
seen in the
February 16, 2005
Senators Question Adequacy of Bush Budget for Veterans
By ROBERT PEAR
 ASHINGTON,
Feb. 15 - Senators of both parties said on Tuesday that President Bush's budget
for veterans' health care would not provide enough money to maintain services at
current levels, much less care for thousands of veterans streaming back to the
United States from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Five veterans groups, including the American Legion, denounced a proposal
in Mr. Bush's budget that would double the co-payment charged to many veterans
for prescription drugs and require some to pay a new fee of $250 a year for the
privilege of using government health care.
Senator Larry E. Craig, Republican of Idaho, the chairman of the Senate
Committee on Veterans Affairs, said the Department of Veterans Affairs would
need more than the $30.7 billion for medical care in Mr. Bush's budget just "to
maintain current levels of service" in 2006.
Mr. Nicholson said the budget showed a strong commitment to veterans, but
he added: "We have to make tough decisions. We have to set priorities."
In providing care, he said, the department will focus on "those who are
disabled because of their military service, those who are down on their luck,
those who are poor and those who have chronic illnesses or special conditions
like spinal cord injury."
Mr. Craig said he detected "unanimous concern on the part of this
committee that the budget has some inadequacies." The need to provide care to
veterans is increasing, he said, because improvements in military medicine are
saving the lives of many service members whose injuries would have proved fatal
in previous wars
Read the whole story as it appeared in the NY Times and see what the
committee members believe will be the ultimate impact on our veterans that
served this nation without any reservations.
Click Here
America Needs Safe Staffing—Stat!
Staffing is becoming a major problem in Canandaigua, mandatory
overtime is creating a stress factor that needs to be addressed by management
and our union. It puts our veterans and our staff at risk.
Currently there are two grievances pending that
challenge the current levels and the use of a staffing formula as the end all be
all for staffing.
We are not alone the nation is struggling with
the cutting of staffing levels and the budget dollar. We have created a ADO
(Assignment Despite Objection) Form for the use of Nurses at the Canandaigua VA
and encourage you to make use of the form when you believe you are being forced
to work with a staffing level that is unsafe for our veterans or is unsafe for
the staff assigned to your unit.
To open the form simply
click here then print the document and
follow the directions on the form. Keep in mind you must first advise the PCC or
your Nurse Manager that you believe the current staffing level puts your
patients and staff at risk.
Working families support national nurse staffing standards to save lives,
protect patients and keep nurses safe in our hospitals.
National Nurse Day, May 6, 2004, was an important day for the AFL-CIO Nurses: A
United Voice for Safe Staffing Now campaign.
On Nurse Day, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) introduced the Nurse Staffing
Standards for Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2004 in the U.S. House of
Representatives. The bill, H.R. 4316, establishes minimum direct care registered
nurse-to-patient staffing ratios to improve patient safety and quality of care
and to address the nursing shortage that has left our nation’s hospitals
critically understaffed.
Take a moment and visit the AFL-CIO Nurses Staffing Campaign and see what you
can do to keep our facility safe.
Click Here
President Signs The Veterans Health
Programs Improvement Act of 2004
Legislative Update – December 1
On Tuesday, November 30, 2004, the President signed into law H.R. 3936,
the Veterans Health Programs Improvement Act of 2004 ", which makes changes to
the Department of Veterans Affairs authorities relating to health care and
management and disposal of real property and facilities. The bill directly
impacts the future of Canandaigua and enhances nursing retention.
For an in-depth look at the law and its intensions -
Click Here
U.S. Army Announces New Programs
Aimed at Disabled Veterans
This program is designed to serve those
soldiers severely disabled in recent engagements. Check out the services many of
our soldiers may be able to access, which may help them in returning to civilian
life.
Click Here
To access our former website click here
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