Deficit cuts may claim veterans’ health care

WASHINGTON – At least tens of thousands of veterans with noncritical medical issues could suffer delayed or even denied care in coming years to enable President Bush to meet his promise of cutting the deficit in half – if the White House is serious about its proposed budget.

After an increase for next year, the Bush budget would turn current trends on their head. Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing by leaps and bounds, White House budget documents assume a cutback in 2008 and further cuts thereafter.

In fact, the proposed cuts appear so draconian that it seems to some that the White House is simply making them up to make its long-term deficit figures look better. More realistic numbers, however, would raise doubts as to whether Bush can keep his promise to wrestle the deficit under control by the time he leaves office.

“Either the administration is proposing gutting VA health care over the next five years or it is not serious about it’s own budget,” said Rep. Chet Edwards of Texas, top Democrat on the panel overseeing the VA’s budget. “If the proposals aren’t serious, then that would undermine the administration’s argument that they intend to reduce the deficit in half over the next several years.”

In fact, the White House doesn’t seem serious about the numbers. It says the long-term budget numbers don’t represent actual administration policies. Similar cuts assumed in earlier budgets have been reversed.

“The country can meet the goal of cutting the deficit in half and still invest in key programs for vulnerable Americans, and claims to the contrary aren’t supported by the facts of recent budget history,” said White House budget office spokesman Scott Milburn.

The veterans’ medical care cuts would come even though more and more people are trying to enter the system and as the number of people wounded in Iraq keeps rising. Even though Iraq war veterans represent only about 2 percent of the Veterans Administration’s patient caseload, many are returning from battle with grievous injuries requiring costly care.

The White House budget office, however, assumes that the veterans’ medical services budget – up 69 percent since Bush took office and which would rise by 11 percent next year under Bush’s budget – can absorb cuts for three years in a row after that.

The administration insists it makes spending policies one year at a time and that the long-term veterans’ budget figures are therefore subject to change.

Even with recent funding increases, cost-cutting moves have locked more than a quarter million veterans out of the system. Those excluded have no illnesses or injuries attributable to their military service and earn more than the average wage in their community.

In Bush’s proposal to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term, he’s assuming spending on domestic agency operating budgets can be frozen over the next few years.

“Each year the budget numbers go up,” said Jeff Schrade, spokesman for Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Larry Craig, R-Idaho. “Speculation beyond 2007’s budget is, at this point, just speculation.”