Two wars creating fears for VA care

McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — From the economic crisis at home to a troop increase in Afghanistan, veterans’ advocates are warning of a “perfect storm” that could flood an already beleaguered health-care network for former service members.

Even with the troop count in Iraq scheduled to wind down, the demands on the Department of Veterans Affairs could increase.

“The crisis is not going away,” said Paul Sullivan, the executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a nonpartisan advocacy group. “Everyone thinks that with bringing the troops back from the war, things [at the VA] are going to get better. They’re not.”

The VA has treated 400,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans since 2001, but it’s often underestimated how many of those former troops would need its help.

What impact the pullout from Iraq will have is unclear. President Barack Obama wants to withdraw about 100,000 of the 142,000 U.S. troops there by August of next year.

“It is something we need to be watching,” said Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington state, a leading veterans’ advocate in Congress. “We don’t yet know the percentage of those who will be coming home, but we do know there will be some. There is a combination of factors that are sending a big, yellow, blinking caution light.”

Since 2001, the twin wars have stretched the VA’s capacity as it’s been called on to provide long-term treatment for the kinds of devastating physical wounds that have become signatures of modern combat, as well as a host of unseen, but no less searing, mental-health traumas.

Veterans’ advocates said they were concerned about the agency’s ability to handle more patients since its health system already was operating at full tilt.

Repeated attempts to seek a comment from VA officials about the impact of the troop pullout and other developments on the agency were unsuccessful.

According to interviews with veterans’ advocates, as well as a little-publicized report earlier this year from Veterans for Common Sense, those developments include:

UA lack of jobs for returning veterans, which could leave many without health insurance and dependent on the VA. Even before the economy sank, a 2007 VA survey of troops mostly discharged in 2005 found that their unemployment rate was more than 18 percent.

UFree VA health care for five years for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, courtesy of Congress.

URepeat deployments, including the posting of more troops to Afghanistan, which will increase the chance of more combat injuries.

URecognition that mental-health problems such as post-traumatic-stress disorder affect a lot of veterans, which could erase the stigma and make them seek VA help.

The VA has treated nearly 180,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans for at least one mental-health condition, according to its most recent health analysis. That’s 45 percent of all the veterans of those conflicts whom the VA has treated.

The department operates more than 1,000 hospitals, clinics and Vet Centers. It has 5.5 million patients, including an ever-increasing stream of men and women who have served in the Middle East and southwest Asia, as well as veterans of past conflicts going back to World War II.

The veterans community has unanimously applauded Obama’s plan to increase VA funding by $15 billion, but few doubt that meeting the growing demand will be hard.