Severe cuts in veterans AND active duty health benefits; rumor or fact?

This appears just now on freerepublic.com. This fragment is just part of it; log onto that URL for more details. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of what is reported; it sounds like pretty severe cuts, if true. If they push it, it will create a firestorm of protest.
Regards


About Obama’s Heath Care proposal on Active Duty Military Families and Veterans!


My office just got word today that our new President Obama has proposed a plan to cut military health care benefits! This is great news for the 99.9% Veterans and Active Duty members who are currently using health care benefits. The Congressional Budget Office has made public a proposal stating that Veterans (you know the men and women who have fought in wars and spent 20 plus years in the service) are now going to be paying up to 50% of their medical bill. That¢s a big jump from paying nothing for the past 30 some odd years.

The biggest kicker is Active Duty Military (yep, I said Active Duty) will now! be paying 10% of their total bill. They will now be billed for their kids visiting the doctor. Again, a big jump from being free! Another benefit subject to change is VA medical benefits. Everyone who is receiving a benefit from the VA for a service-related injury will have to be re-assessed and the proposal states this will affect “90% of vets receiving VA benefits and will save the government $53 Billion dollars over 10 years”.

Needless to say, today is the first time I have heard from the few Obama supporters in my office say “if this gets passed they will not continue to be a supporter”. Isn’t this the candidate that just a few months ago was preaching to get health care coverage to ALL ? Isn’t it ironic, moronic and outrageous to steal $53 Billion from vets and active duty military families so the Crack Head down the street will receive free medical coverage?

It would not surprise me at all. My son is an enlisted man in the Air Force and is already required to buy food to take into the field with him and drive himself to work even though he lives on base. Both were unheard of when I was in the Army. In the late 1960's and after the military provided three hots and got you to work if it was too far to walk and you were on base.

I suspect it'll be a tough fight to pass something like this but i certainly wouldn't put it past the Obama Nation.

Well as a 100% disabled vet I guess my position on this crap is pretty clear

Dan

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...MANATION-1.jpg

but the question is in what form. As a retiree I don't pay "nothing" for my health care. TriCare Prime is $460 a year for my wife and I plus medicine co-pays and doctor's office co-pays plus whatever else they charge us. It's been a thorne in the side of the budget people for years. When I entered Naval service in 1968, I was told if I retired, it would be free. So much for that concept. For those who think it's a deal, you can have my knees from all those years on steel decks. All my fused vertibrae, and the rest. If I choose to use the Navy Hospital for my doctor's visits and meds (they don't always have what my M.D. prescribes) then there is no cost unless surgery co-pays. I'll pay the co-pay so I can see an M.D. in a reasonable time. My co-workers who are also retired wait a while to see a doc or a specialist...they use the NMC here in San Diego.

You have to remember...we are in a tax and spend cycle. Oops, I forgot. We are always in a tax and spend cycle. Especially here in California.

Oh well. There's alway Tijuana for cheap medical care. Oops, I forgot again. They shoot you down there.

JMO

Bruce

Proposed Budget Supports VA Programs
March 02, 2009
Department of Veterans Affairs

Funding Plan Improves Access, Modernizes Technology

WASHINGTON – President Obama's first proposed budget for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) expands eligibility for health care to an additional 500,000 deserving Veterans over the next five years, meets the need for continued growth in programs for the combat Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, and provides the resources to deliver quality health care for the Nation’s 5.5 million Veteran patients.

The 2010 budget request is a significant step toward realizing a vision shared by the President and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric K. Shinseki to transform VA into an organization that is people-centric, results-driven and forward-looking.

“Our success must encompass cost-effectiveness,” Shinseki said. “We are stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we will include appropriate metrics to accurately gauge the quality of our care and the effectiveness of our management processes.”

If accepted by Congress, the President’s budget proposal would increase VA’s budget from $98 billion this fiscal year to $113 billion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2009. This is in addition to the $1.4 billion provided for VA projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

The 2010 budget represents the first step toward increasing funding for VA efforts by $25 billion over baseline during the next five years. The gradual expansion in health care enrollment that this would support will open hospital and clinic doors to more than 500,000 Veterans by 2013 who have been regrettably excluded from VA medical care benefits since 2003. The 2010 budget request provides the resources to achieve this level of service while maintaining high quality and timely care for lower-income and service-disabled Veterans who currently rely on VA medical care.

The new budget provides greater benefits for Veterans who are medically retired from active duty, allowing for the first time disabled military retirees to keep their full VA disability compensation along with their retired pay. The President’s budget request also provides the resources for effective implementation of the post-9/11 GI Bill -- providing unprecedented levels of educational support to the men and women who have served our country through active military duty.

The new budget will support additional specialty care in such areas as prosthetics, vision and spinal cord injury, aging, and women's health. New VA Centers of Excellence will focus on improving these critical services.

The proposed fiscal year 2010 budget also addresses the tragic fact of homelessness among Veterans. It expands VA's current services through a collaborative pilot program with non-profit organizations that is aimed at maintaining stable housing for vulnerable Veterans at risk of homelessness, while providing them with supportive services to help them get back on their feet through job training, preventive care, and other critical services.

Finally, the President’s budget request provides the necessary investments to carry VA services to rural communities that are too often unable to access VA care. The President's budget expands VA mental health screening and treatment with a focus on reaching Veterans in rural areas in part through an increase in Vet Centers and mobile health clinics. New outreach funding will help rural Veterans and their families stay informed of these resources and encourage them to pursue needed care.

It's amazing the number of people that think this Moran is here to help them , well this shows his strips don't it. Maybe he thinks the military are the rich or that those rich Vets just have nothing to do but wait in line for thier free health care but wait it ain't free. If you have money they make you pay some or insurrance they will bill them. So what is he worried about anyway the Gov. already gets a few pound of flesh from the Vets , but why go after the active Troops, well maybe he just don't like them. I'd becareful Mr. O they are the ones that might have to protect your a-s someday.

If he wants it so bad why not open up VA hospitals to the poor with Vets getting first in line status. Let them Gov doctors earn thier money and leave our good health system alone , I don't want my Doctor under his thumb at all. I'm a vet an worked for the VA for over 20 years and some of the VA hospitals are under used some are not but it's something to try before blasting the best health care system in the world. Also it use to grat my nerves some about the VA an you'll see it if you read the post on funding , I do think a vet that has injures from service connected problems deserves help with them BUT I don't think I a VET deserves life health care for everything. That is why they might have added you paying for care a few years ago was started ,to get money for none service connected illness. This topic can generate a lot of feeling so don't get to unset :).

Presidents/Congress have been screwing the veterans for years, just a little at a time.
Want to check something out? Doesn't take too much of a search to see what the cost of the Iraq war costs per year and what the disparingly poor increase to Veterans benefits has matched it.

A great eye opening (IMHO) book, although a few years old is Wounded Men, Broken Promises by Robert Klein.

BTW: MY STATEMENT ABOVE IS NEITHER ANTI-WAR NOR PRO-WAR.

all I can say about va health care is that I am a service connected (COMBAT INJURIES) 100% disabled veteran (and all my records are there and I have a medical retirement - chapter 61) and I have had nothing but a 100% FAILURE rate on dealing with the VA for over 30 years.
My congressmen, senators, etc just dont give a rats rectum and NEVER HAVE regardless of which political party they SUPPOSEDLY belong to.
I personally PAY for my health insurance and have for quite some time. Now I have medicare, tricare standard and medigap blue cross that I pay for.
They have NOT even covered my DIRECT injuries!
I could write a book on this subject but most folks just don't care as I've learned over the years.
All I can say is good luck to anyone going in today.
Cav