WASHINGTON Report: Budget plan cuts veteran benefits

The Bush administration recently cut enrollment for some veterans.
By DAVID ENRICH
STATES NEWS SERVICE
WASHINGTON -- More than 40,000 veterans in Ohio would lose access to federal Veterans Affairs health-care services under President Bush's 2004 budget proposal, according to a report released Tuesday by congressional Democrats.
The report, prepared by a House committee for Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland of Lisbon, found that the annual enrollment fee and higher copayments Bush has proposed would force many Ohio veterans to stop enrolling in and receiving services through the VA system.
Bush's budget proposal, announced in February, would impose a $250 annual enrollment fee on veterans who don't have service-related disabilities and generally have incomes above $24,000. Veterans in those groups also would see their copayments for doctor visits rise from $15 to $20 and from $7 to $15 per 30-day prescription.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs said the changes would help make up for insufficient financial resources and reduce the backlogs that are forcing some patients to wait months for time-sensitive health services.
The plan, which is subject to congressional approval, is designed simultaneously to reduce enrollment of less needy patients and to raise more money.
Mixed views
When the stricter eligibility requirements were proposed in February, the department trumpeted them as a way to help "focus its health care assets on providing medical care to veterans who need it most."
But congressional Democrats and veterans groups say the new restrictions would mean that hundreds of thousands of veterans nationwide wouldn't receive the health benefits that were promised to them when they enlisted in the military.
Strickland said the cost of fully funding VA health programs amounts to less than 2 percent of the cost of the tax cuts that Bush and congressional Republicans are pushing through Congress.
J.P. Brown III, the Youngstown-based commander of Ohio AMVETS, said he thinks the cutbacks would have "drastic effects on veterans," especially in Northeast Ohio, where unemployment is rising. "A lot of these people are just barely making it now," he said.
Enrollment freeze
The Democrats' report, which is being released to coincide with the upcoming Memorial Day, also concluded that the administration's recent decision to stop enrolling veterans who weren't seriously injured in service and whose incomes are relatively high will make 4,000 Ohioans ineligible for VA health care.
Unlike the other proposed changes, the enrollment freeze didn't require congressional backing and went into effect in mid-January.
In the four months since, 829 veterans in Northeast Ohio have been denied care, said David Jewel, spokesman for the department's medical center and 12 outpatient clinics in Northeast Ohio.