FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 2, 2004

CONTACT: Susan Edgerton @ 202/225-9756

Washington, D.C. -- Calling this year’s Bush Administration budget proposal for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) a matter of “seriously misplaced priorities,” Rep. Lane Evans (IL), the Ranking Democratic Member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee said “a significant portion of this document should be quickly and soundly rejected.”

“I’m not aware of anyone who will celebrate an increase in the veterans’ medical care budget of less than 2 percent,” Evans said. “Plus, we’ve seen before—and rejected on a bipartisan basis—many of the Administration’s proposals that would increase pharmacy and primary care copayments and establish user fees for veterans,” Evans continued.

The Bush Administration requested about a $500 million increase for veterans’ medical care, for a total of $27.4 billion, which does not include money collected from veterans and their insurers. In sharp contrast, without the projected savings from legislative initiatives or management efficiencies, VA would require more than $2 billion in additional appropriations. “The President said this was a ‘tough’ budget and he wasn’t wrong about that in terms of its impact on America’s veterans,” said Evans.

Evans said the VA health care system has costs that are not within its control—federal pay raises are mandated, for example, and the system must negotiate within the high-cost health care industry for everything from prices of its pharmaceutical drugs to contracts for physicians with highly specialized skills. Also, the Administration’s budget calls for $340 million of vaguely defined management “efficiencies” in addition to the almost $1 billion of “efficiencies” it already has imposed on the system.

Other provisions of this year’s budget submission that Evans called into question include:

Evans cites the Administration’s newest “disappointing” budget proposal as a “profound example of the need to take VA spending out of the political arena.” Evans has introduced legislation, the “Assured Funding for Veterans Health Care Act of 2003,” which has nearly 150 cosponsors in the House. Two companion bills have been introduced in the Senate. The bill would establish a formula based on the number of veterans enrolled for VA health care and the hospital inflation rate projected for each year and provide necessary funding directly from the U.S. Treasury to VA.

Evans said four major veterans’ service organizations—AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States—have produced a budget recommendation of about $31.1 billion for all VA medical programs and construction. These organizations and five other major veterans’ service organizations have made passage of a “mandatory funding” bill, such as Evans’s, their top legislative priority this year.

Evans said he is deeply concerned by Bush budget proposals to reduce the number of VA employees available to process claims for compensation and pension, education, home loan and vocational rehabilitation benefits. VA acknowledges that a significant number of employees responsible for processing of compensation and pension claims will be eligible for retirement in 2005 and will be replaced by trainees. Nonetheless, VA expects these trainees to process an increased workload, without loss of timeliness and accuracy.

“This is unrealistic. A country that can afford to send men and women into harm’s way can afford and must provide the resources to care for them on their return,” said Evans.

Evans called upon the President to revisit his priorities. “This budget is certain to come under broad-based scrutiny because it lacks funding for the continued missions in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Evans. “We’re in a time of war—veterans and defense should be high priorities, even if the wealthiest Americans have to wait a little longer for their tax relief,” he said.

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