GAO STUDY RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT VA's CAPACITY

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Read how the Budget Committee interprets its shortfalls - Click Here

 Read the whole story regarding our raise by clicking here
U.S. Vets from Iraq War
Emerge at Homeless Shelters
By Mark Benjamin
Wednesday 8th December, 2004

U.S. veterans from the war in Iraq are beginning
to show up at homeless shelters around the country, and advocates fear they
are the leading edge of a new generation of homeless vets not seen since
the Vietnam era.
"When we already have people from Iraq on the streets, my God," 
said Linda Boone, executive director of the National
Coalition for Homeless Veterans. "I have talked to enough (shelters) to
know we are getting them. It is happening and this nation is not prepared
for that
"I drove off in my truck. I packed my stuff. I lived out of my truck for a 
while," Seabees Petty Officer Luis Arellano,
34, said in a telephone interview from a homeless shelter near March Air
Force Base in California run by U.S.VETS, the largest organization in the
country dedicated to helping homeless veterans
Arellano said he lived out of his truck on and
off for three months after returning from Iraq in September 2003. "One day
you have a home and the next day you are on the streets," he said
In Iraq, shrapnel nearly severed his left thumb.
He still has trouble moving it and shrapnel "still comes out once in a
while," Arellano said. He is left handed
Arellano said he felt pushed out of the military
too quickly after getting back from Iraq without medical attention he
needed for his hand -- and as he would later learn, his mind
"It was more of a rush. They put us in a
warehouse for a while. They treated us like cattle," Arellano said about
how the military treated him on his return to the United States
"It is all about numbers. Instead of getting
quality care, they were trying to get everybody demobilized during a
certain time frame. If you had a problem, they said, 'Let the (Department
of Veterans Affairs) take care of it
The Pentagon has acknowledged some early
problems and delays in treating soldiers returning from Iraq but says the
situation has been fixed
A gunner's mate for 16 years, Arellano said he
adjusted after serving in the first Gulf War. But after returning from
Iraq, depression drove him to leave his job at the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission. He got divorced
He said that after being quickly pushed out of
the military, he could not get help from the VA because of long delays
"I felt, as well as others (that the military
said) 'We can't take care of you on active duty.' We had to sign an
agreement that we would follow up with the VA," said Arellano
"When we got there, the VA was totally full.
They said, 'We'll call you.' But I developed depression
He left his job and wandered for three months,
sometimes living in his truck
Nearly 300,000 veterans are homeless on any
given night, and almost half served during the Vietnam era, according to
the Homeless Veterans coalition, a consortium of community-based
homeless-veteran service providers. While some experts have questioned 
the degree to which mental trauma from combat causes homelessness, a 
large number of veterans live with the long-term effects of post-traumatic 
stress disorder and substance abuse, according to the coalition
Some homeless-veteran advocates fear that
similar combat experiences in Vietnam and Iraq mean that these first few
homeless veterans from Iraq are the crest of a wave
"This is what happened with the Vietnam vets. I
went to Vietnam," said John Keaveney, chief operating officer of New
Directions, a shelter and drug-and-alcohol treatment program for veterans
in Los Angeles. That city has an estimated 27,000 homeless veterans, the
largest such population in the nation. "It is like watching history being
repeated," Keaveney said
Data from the Department of Veterans Affairs
shows that as of last July, nearly 28,000 veterans from Iraq sought health
care from the VA. One out of every five was diagnosed with a mental
disorder, according to the VA. An Army study in the New England Journal of
Medicine in July showed that 17 percent of service members returning from
Iraq met screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety
disorder or PTSD.

Whither You Go We Will Follow..
DOD Regulations Will Have A Trickle Down Effect
for All  Federal Employees...

NSPS Regulations - Any Day Now!

The proposed National Security Personnel System (NSPS) regulations could be
released anytime after Monday, January 24. Unfortunately, we fully expect
that the proposed regulations will undermine the pay, benefits and rights of DoD civilian employees and set the stage for a similar regulations to be applied to all federal employees.

The NSPS regulations must first be published in the Federal Register.
The publication will set the stage for:

A 30-day comment period, meaning anyone who cares to comment on the regulations can do so. · This is followed by a 30-day period in which DoD reviews the comments and meets with the unions to discuss the regulations under a "meet and confer" provision of the law.

When the regulations are published, AFGE will do an immediate analysis, which will be emailed to you and placed on the web. We will also provide the details on how, where, etc. your local and every interested person can comment. We want to make sure that "NSPS" is beneficial for employees and all federal employees should use their voice to make this happen.

Our tasks in the first 30 days must be to:

(1) Educate as many DoD and non-DoD employees to the proposed changes
and urge them to use their voice to file "comments" on NSPS.

(2) React publicly in the press, and

(3) Begin educating the members of Congress during the recess period
of February 21-28.

There is a lot of work to do and no time to waste. We will be
planning activities beyond the first 30 days, but we only have the
first 30 days to encourage all employees to "comment".

For more information on what you can do now to stop the Bush Administration from making your pay subject to administrative bias  - Click Here

Wave of Mental Problems Follows GIs Home

By Mark Benjamin

United Press International

Published 5/13/2004 9:51 AM

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., May 13 (UPI) -- Soldiers at Fort Carson report a wave of serious mental problems among troops back from the "war on terrorism," according to interviews with soldiers, their families and a therapist working with them.

 The torment seems linked to troubling behavior -- including a suicide, violence and heavy drinking among a number of the 12,000 troops arriving back in Colorado Springs, nestled in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains, 60 miles south of Denver.

House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs
Chairman Steve Buyer on Caring for Veterans: ‘A sacred duty’

A Letter from Chairman Buyer

America is the most generous nation in the world in its support to military veterans. With our Greatest Generation World War II and Korean War veterans seeking health care in their twilight years, our Vietnam veterans now in their fifties and sixties, and a new generation of veterans returning from the global war on terror, that support has never been more important.

Of America’s 25 million veterans, those disabled and injured in service; those with special needs, such as blindness and spinal cord injuries; and the indigent are the “core constituency” of the Department of Veterans Affairs. They are our highest priority for quality health care; however, surging enrollments are overextending VA’s health care system.

Dramatic growth in enrollments began with The Veterans’ Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996. The law expanded services VA could provide to all veterans not dishonorably discharged and established a system of priority groups. Core-constituency veterans are in the top priority groups. In the lowest priority groups are veterans with no service-connected disabilities and higher incomes – and very often with other health care options. Provision of care for them was contingent on VA having sufficient resources for its high-priority enrollees.

With reform, enrollments more than doubled. The number of patients without service-connected conditions and with higher incomes – the lower priority groups – rose 1,200 percent between 1996 and 2003. More than 5 million veterans are now treated by VA. That number is growing as veterans discover VA quality health care and low-cost prescription drugs.

America has kept faith with its veterans. President Bush, working with Congress, has provided unprecedented increases in veterans health care funding: since 2001, VA’s health care budget has risen over 40 percent. Yet, with a proposed 2006 record health care budget of over $30 billion, VA still treats only one-fifth of the nation’s veterans. The influx of enrollees who are not service-connected has strained VA’s ability to provide quality care to high-priority veterans who need it most.

This was not our intent in Congress. Passage of reform was partly based on VA studies indicating that it would likely be budget-neutral. Reform would encourage veterans to seek preventative care in new VA outpatient clinics, reducing the need for expensive inpatient treatment later on. The studies proved wrong and surging enrollments have required much larger budgets (however, no veterans have been “cut” from the system).

We must ensure that this growth does not endanger high quality veterans health care. One solution is to ask lower priority veterans, whose health care problems are not service-connected and who have the financial means, to pay a modest enrollment fee. There is a glaring inequity. Military retirees of 20 or more years of service must pay enrollment fees and deductibles, and make co-pays for their TRICARE Prime health plan.

We must also manage the system better. VFW Commander-in-Chief John Furgess, addressing Congress in March, called on VA to “start acting like a business and create a corporate culture of accountability that rewards success and penalizes failure.”

He is right. VA must operate as efficiently as is possible. New veterans must be assured that health care and benefits will be there for them if they are injured and in need.

The House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs has a strong record of bipartisan support for veterans that we must and will maintain. We have recommended increases of more than $430 million to the President’s 2006 budget proposal in key areas, including health care, state nursing home partnerships, and prosthetics.

We must help veterans transition from the military to a productive and dignified civilian life. One of my first acts as Chairman was to form a new Subcommittee on Economic Opportunity. The Subcommittee will help veterans who protected our system of free enterprise fully participate in it.

The cause to serve veterans is personal to me. I followed my grandfather, father and brother into uniform, where I polished the values of duty, honor and country. As a Congressman, I championed bills that improved life for servicemembers and veterans, including TRICARE for Life, pharmacy entitlements for Medicare-eligible military retirees, increased military pay and benefits, and care for those suffering from Gulf War illnesses.

For me, one of the “absolutes” in this work is caring for those disabled in the service of this country. It is a sacred duty. I look forward to continuing it as Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

Congressman Steve Buyer is Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs (http://veterans.house.gov). A 1980 distinguished military graduate of The Citadel, he was commissioned in the U.S. Army Reserve. In 1990, with three days notice, Congressman Buyer closed his Indiana law practice to serve on active duty in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm.

Congressman Buyer continues to serve as a Colonel in the Army Reserve.

More information about hearings, legislation, and other activities of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs can be found on our award-winning Website: www.veterans.house.gov To be removed from our mailing list, click here.