stopping Plavix has risks
Bloomberg News
Heart attacks and deaths nearly doubled after patients stopped taking the anti-clotting drug Plavix, according to the first national study documenting the risk to heart patients who end their drug therapy.
The study of more than 3,000 U.S. military veterans who had heart attacks or chest pain found their risk of another heart attack or death spiked in the 90 days after they stopped taking the medication, made by Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and Sanofi- Aventis SA. The U.S.-funded study appears in the Feb. 6 Journal of the American Medical Association.
The findings, if confirmed, could alter care for heart attack patients treated with drugs or stents to prop open their clogged arteries, said lead researcher John Rumsfeld, a staff cardiologist at the Denver Veterans Affairs Medical Center. The research also suggests that deadly blood clots in patients with cardiac stents may sometimes be related to Plavix instead of the mesh tubes that prop open the arteries.
"In all of these situations, after you finish your course of therapy, we see this spike or an increased risk of a heart attack," Rumsfeld said in a telephone interview. "That suggests the problem may have to do with this potential rebound as opposed to a stent mechanism," since many patients didn't get a stent, he said.
About 775,000 people have mild heart attacks or chest pain known as acute coronary syndrome in the U.S. each year. One treatment involves stents from Boston Scientific Corp. or Johnson & Johnson to hold open the artery and relieve pain. Worries about stent-related blood clots led sales of the newer drug-coated devices to plunge 30 percent in the U.S. last year.
Another heart treatment is a cocktail of Plavix and other drugs, which a study last year said was as effective as stents in preventing future heart attacks and death.
Heart patients take Plavix, also known as clopidogrel, daily for nine months to a year to prevent new clots. They should talk to their doctor after finishing treatment to decide whether to continue taking Plavix, reducing the dose, switching to a different drug or stopping and watching for complications, Rumsfeld said.
The study, funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, was conceived after a researcher's father-in-law suffered a heart attack in the days after finishing Plavix therapy. Other investigators said they knew similar stories of patients who went from healthy to the hospital after they stopped Plavix.
"This paper suggests not just from an anecdote, but from looking at thousands of patients, that this seems to be a real phenomenon," said Deepak Bhatt, a cardiologist at the Cleveland Clinic, who wasn't involved in the study. "They were on a drug that was helping them and was protective, the drug was stopped for a reason, and the benefit is gone."
The researchers examined data on 3,137 soldiers treated from October 2003 to March 2005 at 127 Veterans Affairs hospitals. More than 60 percent of the 268 second heart attacks and deaths among those given drug therapy occurred within 90 days of stopping Plavix, as did 59 percent of the 124 deaths among patients given stents.
Friday, February 8, 2008
Study: Heart attacks, deaths rise after Plavix stopped
VFW Wants Dole/Shalala Recommendation Blocked
VFW opposes Dole/Shalala recommendations
Creating separate system is an injustice to all disabled veterans
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7, 2008--The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. is urging the leadership of four key congressional committees to block attempts to create a separate disability system that would have the Department of Veterans Affairs compensate veterans with similar wounds differently based on their age.
"There is no difference between a 22-year-old shot in the leg on Iwo Jima 63 years ago this month and a 22-year-old shot in the leg in Iraq yesterday," said VFW National Commander George Lisicki, a Vietnam veteran from Carteret, N.J. "To compensate them differently based solely on age, and using the rational that this new generation is more deserving than older veterans, is an injustice, and violates every fundamental rule of fairness that Americans hold dear."
The recommendation in contention was made by the President's Commission on Care for America's Wounded Warriors, which was co-chaired by retired Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.) and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala. The Dole/Shalala Commission was chartered in March 2007 as the administration's response to the outpatient housing debacle at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Four months later, the commission published a 149-page report with six broad recommendations.
The VFW wants more attention paid to the Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission that Congress chartered in 2004 to study the benefits that compensate and assist veterans and their survivors for disabilities and deaths attributable to military service. After thousands of interviews and almost three years of research – including major studies by the Institute of Medicine and the Center for Naval Analysis – it published a 562-page report in October 2007 that included 113 detailed recommendations.
"The Dole/Shalala Commission's mandate was not to make broad generalizations and sweeping recommendations that would throw out a disability compensation system that has served millions of veterans extremely well over the years," said Lisicki. "Dole/Shalala was good, but it wasn't that good, and it certainly wasn't thorough enough to be touted as the 'cure-all' for all the VA's problems."
The VFW national commander is very concerned that a major change in the way the VA conducts business may be forced upon America's veterans without any opposition.
"The VFW is 100 percent against compensating veterans with the same injuries differently because of their age," said Lisicki, who voiced the VFW's opposition yesterday in a letter to the leadership of the House and Senate Committees on Armed Services and Veterans Affairs. [Read letter]
VFW Washington Office Executive Director Bob Wallace is now tasked to ensure the VFW's position is conveyed to and understood by the administration and Congress.
"How our nation properly cares for, and then fairly compensates our disabled veterans or their surviving family members are the only issues on the table, and that's why we are calling on Congress to thoroughly evaluate the recommendations made by both commissions" said Wallace, also a Vietnam veteran.
"Everyone wants to do what's best for our troops and for our veterans – to include all the members of both commissions – but what we absolutely must not do is create conditions that could cause the VA to fail in its primary mission," he said. "The VA is a national resource for disabled veterans. As an institution, it must survive, not just for the next 10 years, but for the next 100 years."
Source: VFW
War veteran fights $50K claim with VA
TV station helps vet get the VA to pay surgical bills
By Michael FinneyEUREKA, CA -- A Vietnam veteran escaped the war unharmed, but the financial scars left by his battle with the Veterans Administration over medical bills posed a more serious threat. So, he called for reinforcements and 7 On Your Side's Michael Finney answered the call for help.
When a surgeon removed a tumor from James Hendryx colon, his fight was just beginning. The VA refused to pay his near $50,000 dollar medical claim. It's an experience veteran advocates say is not uncommon.
James Hendryx of Eureka served in Vietnam with the 11th Armored Cavalry, but the fight surrounding his colon cancer proved to be the challenge of his life.
Luther Cobb removed the tumor from Hendryx' colon and says "it seemed to be an open and shut case. He clearly needed to have it done."
20 months after the successful surgery, Hendrix is healthy but battle tested. He was rushed into surgery in March of 2006 at Mad River Community Hospital after becoming anemic and losing two thirds of his blood volume.
The bills from the surgery and the treatment quickly added up. He owed $5,900 dollars for the surgery itself, more than $1,000 a day for his hospital stay, along with various other hospital bills. For that, His total bill came out to around $40,000 dollars. Hendryx submitted his bills to his VA Medical Insurance.
"We sent them the bills and the letters and the doctors and social workers and stuff sent me letters back saying no, this is denied. This is not acceptable by our standards at the VA," says Hendryx.
To understand why his claim was denied, you have to go back to October of 2005. That's when his VA doctor sent him to the San Francisco for a colonoscopy. He says the technician suggested he get a sigmoidoscopy instead, because the examination of just the lower part of his colon would be less invasive.
Hendryx' decision to get a sigmoidoscopy was a costly one. The procedure failed to detect the tumor and it's also the reason the VA denied his insurance claim.
In its denial letter, the VA wrote: "Patient refused full colonoscopy against the recommendation of our staff, the request for payment is denied."
Hendryx' surgeon sits on the Executive Board of the California Medical Association. He says the VA misdiagnosed the case.
"He showed up at their facility and got a test that didn't make the diagnosis. They didn't follow it up. They missed the call," says Cobb.
Hendryx spent the next 20 months after surgery fighting his claim denial.
"We try to pay our bills, and I didn't have any way of knowing how I was going to pay up to $50,000 thousand dollars in medical bills. I was a little worried. I was afraid of losing everything we had over this," says Hendryx.
Dr. Cobb says "it's one of those outrageous insurance stories you just have to see to believe." He says the denial was all about a budget strapped agency saving money.
Ken Swasey is the Outreach Coordinator at the VA. He says "I would categorically say that's not how we look at it. First and foremost we have to get the services that veterans need."
However, others say the influx of new veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars has put a strain on the VA.
. "Sometimes VA is using cheaper tests and waiting longer to give those tests. In that waiting period, the veterans condition gets worse," says Paul Sullivan, Veterans for Common Sense.
"I would think there's some confusion, misunderstanding about the VA's ability to accommodate, not just returning veterans, but veterans in general. The VA has done incredible efforts to accommodate returning veterans," says Ken Swasey, Veterans Administration.
Over the next year, Hendryx unsuccessfully tried to get the VA to reverse its decision and pay his claim. 16 months after his successful surgery, his wife contacted 7 On Your Side.
"He's all I have. He's my whole life. I live in a wheel chair and I have to depend on him," says Juanita Hendryx.
We contacted the VA, and within a day, it promised to pay the claim. The bill was covered in full by the VA four months later.
"We got the phone call from 7 On Your Side at which point the case was reviewed," says Ken Swasey, Veterans Administration.
"I just thank you for everything you guys have done. I couldn't have done it on my own," says Hendrx.
The VA says it's working hard to better educate the private sector how to better guide VA patients through the appeal process. We should also point out that everyone we talked to agreed that medical care of veterans at the VA is generally good. We have a list of places veterans can turn to when they have a problem with the VA below.
LINKS:
http://www.cdva.ca.gov/Resources/Default.aspx
http://www.cacvso.org/ContentPage.asp?ContentID=80
http://www.cacvso.org/ContentPage.asp?ContentID=82
Appealing a VA Claim Denial: http://www.va.gov/vaforms/va/pdf/VA4107.pdf
Study: Job market hard on recently discharged
Vets have harder time finding work
Strained by war, recently discharged veterans are having a harder time finding civilian jobs and are more likely to earn lower wages for years due partly to employer concerns about their mental health and overall skills, a government study says.
The Department of Veterans Affairs report, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, points to continuing problems with the Bush administration’s efforts to help 4.4 million troops who have been discharged from active duty since 1990.
The 2007 study by the consulting firm Abt Associates Inc. found that 18 percent of the veterans who sought jobs within one to three years of discharge were unemployed, while one out of four who did find jobs earned less than $21,840 a year. Many had taken advantage of government programs such as the GI Bill to boost job prospects, but there was little evidence that education benefits yielded higher pay or better advancement.
The report blamed the poor prospects partly on inadequate job networks and lack of mentors after extended periods in war, and said employers often had misplaced stereotypes about veterans’ fitness for employment, such as concerns they did not possess adequate technological skills, or were too rigid, lacked education or were at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder.
It urged the federal government to consider working with a private-sector marketing firm to help promote and brand war veterans as capable employees, as well as re-examine education and training such as the GI Bill.
“The issue of mental health has turned into a double-edged sword for returning veterans. More publicity has generated more public awareness and federal funding for those who return home different from when they left. However, more publicity — especially stories that perpetuate the ‘Wacko Vet’ myth — has also made some employers more cautious to hire a veteran,” said Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars.
“The federal government needs to accelerate its hiring and training of these young veterans to fill the ranks of the retiring Boomer generation,” he said.
Separately, a Labor Department report obtained by the AP showed that formal job complaints by reservists remained high, citing concerns about denied jobs or benefits after their tried to return to their old jobs after extended tours in Iraq. Reservists filed 1,357 complaints with the department in 2006, the latest figures available, down from nearly 1,600 in 2005, when complaints reached the highest level since 1991.
While complaints declined in 2006, the Labor Department report noted for the first time that figures in the previous years might have been inflated. That’s because in some cases a single complaint was double counted after the case was closed in one state and then reopened in another state.
“The military has worked on assisting service members in completing and translating their skills to match equivalent civilian job descriptions; however, training for marketability may require much more preparation than having the ability to improve a resume,” the VA study said.
“The federal government may need to reevaluate how it serves the needs of returning service members,” it said.
A Labor Department spokesman had no immediate comment. A VA spokesman declined to comment, saying the report spoke for itself. Last November, the VA announced the initial hiring of 10 full-time staff as part of an effort to help veterans find jobs at the department.
The two reports come as Congress and the Bush administration seek ways to improve veterans’ health care and benefits in light of a protracted Iraq war.
A Pentagon survey of reservists released last year found increasing discontent among returning troops about the government’s performance in protecting their legal rights after taking leave from work. Some legal experts have said those numbers may grow once the Iraq war winds down and more troops come home after an extended period in combat.
In recent weeks, some veterans groups and lawmakers have called for an overhaul of the GI Bill, which provides veterans with money to help them further their education.
The difficulty that veterans have had in finding jobs at higher wages has been going on for some time.
The latest VA study tracked a statistical sample of 1,941 veterans between the ages of 17 and 61, more than half of whom served in the Army. It found that from 1991 to 2003, about 9.5 percent of recent veterans were unemployed within two years of separation from active duty, compared with 4.3 percent for non-veterans of comparable age, gender and education.
The veterans also tended to have lower wages, although total income was often similar when factoring in disability pay and other government benefits, and to be in low-income families (under $29,000) for up to eight years after separation.
Automation could speed VA claims
AI to help process VA Claims faster
Artificial intelligence — already used to process private-sector insurance claims, handle banking transactions and double-check medical procedures — might be the solution to help veterans get their benefits faster.
Advocates do not envision technology completely replacing humans in deciding complicated disability benefits claims, but a computerized system could look at key elements of claims and at least make a preliminary recommendation about whether to approve or deny them.
Such a system is already being tested and could be ready for wide use within a year.
Such a system could reduce claims processing time from months to just a few hours, with fewer errors, fewer lost records and less frustration, a panel of experts told the House Veterans’ Affairs disability assistance and memorial affairs subcommittee Jan. 29.
Tom Mitchell, a computer science professor at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University, said veterans benefits are exactly the type of records that artificial intelligence can help manage.
“Claims processing at the Veterans Benefits Administration appears to be amenable to a variety of improvements through the introduction of more computerized operations, including the adoption of artificial intelligence technologies for rule-based processing, case-based reasoning and data mining,” Mitchell said.
Commercial insurance claims are routinely processed online and automatically, Mitchell noted. One health insurance company “processes over 90 percent of its insurance claims for hospital and physician services automatically, with no human intervention,” he said.
The subcommittee chairman, Rep. John Hall, D-N.Y., holds out hope that using computers to determine simple benefits claims would reduce the time it takes for veterans to receive a ruling on a claim, which now averages 177 days and can take far longer.
“I envision a VA in which a veteran can apply online for benefits, upload records, exams and other certificates, which are prioritized and classified by an expert system that can match the data to the rating schedule criteria and shorten the time it takes to generate a claim,” Hall said, adding that a system could pick out key words to calculate a disability rating.
To underscore the importance of finding a more efficient way to process claims, Marine Gunnery Sgt. Tai Cleveland, paralyzed after an August 2003 training accident in Kuwait, and his wife, Robin, told the subcommittee of their five-year battle to get disability, housing and vehicle benefits — a course blocked by confusing rules, lost records and poor communication.
“We filed and refiled, submitted and resubmitted, medical records, claims forms, applications and so on, but no one seemed to be able to track anything, placing additional burdens on an already overwhelmed family,” Robin Cleveland said. “Only after the intervention of a congressional office and a nonprofit organization were we able to get the benefits Tai had earned. This process should not be this hard.”
The financial and emotional toll on the family was “crushing,” she said, noting that the couple’s two children had to drop out of college at one point because the family could not afford it.
“We are going to do everything we can to help you and to make sure this doesn’t happen to others,” Hall told the Clevelands.
Hall said VA has responded to the increasing backlog of claims by hiring more claims processors, but it takes two years to hire and train a new employee — who, once fully trained, can handle only two or three claims a day. And many new hires leave after five years, forcing VA to recruit and train anew.
Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., the subcommittee’s ranking Republican, said some of the Clevelands’ problems could have been solved if Defense Department and VA records were digitized so complex claims could be shared by more than one VA office, and could be easily replaced if lost — which seems to be a major problem for veterans.
Kim Graves, VA’s director of business process integration, said VA “has made significant strides in the use of information technology to improve claims processing in all of our benefit programs.”
Graves said VA is working on a paperless benefits delivery initiative. In a pilot project, a service member’s separate medical records and supporting claim information are digitized at the start of the claims process.
Graves apologized to the Clevelands, and offered to help with any outstanding issues they face.
VA secretary pledges to cut 5 weeks off wait
Promise to cut 5 weeks off VA claims wait
Veterans Affairs Secretary James Peake pledged Thursday to trim more than five weeks off the time it now takes to get the first check to a war veteran who files a disability claim.
In his first appearance before Congress since becoming secretary, Peake also sought to assure lawmakers that President Bush’s proposed 2009 VA budget of $91 billion would be sufficient to meet the growing demands of veterans of a protracted Iraq war. The proposal is a 3.7 percent increase from the previous year, but several lawmakers have criticized it as inadequate after factoring in inflation.
Peake wants to reduce wait times from roughly 180 days to 145 days by the start of next year. He cited aggressive efforts to hire staff, noting that VA will have 3,100 new staff by 2009. VA also is working to get greater online access to Pentagon medical information that he says will allow staff to process claims faster and move toward a system of electronic filing of claims.
Peake promised to “virtually eliminate” the current list of 69,000 veterans who have waited more than 30 days for an appointment to get VA medical care. Such long waits run counter to department policy, and a group of Iraq war veterans have filed a lawsuit alleging undue delays. Peake said VA plans to open 64 new community-based outpatient clinics this year and 51 next year to improve access to health care in rural areas.
“We will take all measures necessary to provide them with timely benefits and services, to give them complete information about the benefits they have earned through their courageous service, and to implement streamlined processes free of bureaucratic red tape,” Peake said in testimony prepared for a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing Thursday.
Peake took over the agency amid criticism that VA was not doing enough to meet the growing needs of war veterans, particularly the thousands returning home injured from Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent months, Bush has released, at the request of Congress, $3.7 billion in emergency money for additional services for injured veterans.
“I am concerned that this budget proposal contains cuts to veterans’ programs,” said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., who chairs the House panel. “Although the request includes an increase for health care, it does not fully fund the needs of America’s veterans.”
Thursday, February 7, 2008
Top doctor attributes series of deaths to pill and alcohol combinations
Army Surgeon General looks into OD deaths
WASHINGTON - The Army’s top doctor, noting the drug overdose death of actor Heath Ledger, said Thursday the military is investigating a series of suspected similar deaths among wounded and injured soldiers.
Lt. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, the Army’s surgeon general, said there has been “a series, a sequence of deaths” in the new, so-called “warrior transition units.” Those are special units set up last year to give sick, injured and war-wounded troops coordinated medical care, financial advice, legal help and other services as they transition toward either a return to uniform or back into civilian life.
Without giving a number, Schoomaker said the deaths among the convalescing troops were “accidental deaths, we believe, often as a consequence of the use of multiple prescription and nonprescription medicines and alcohol.”
“This isn’t restricted to the military, alone, as we all saw the unfortunate death of one of our leading actors recently,” Schoomaker told Pentagon reporters.
The New York medical examiner announced Wednesday that Ledger, the 28-year-old “Brokeback Mountain” star, died Jan. 22 from an accidental overdose — the effects of taking six types of painkillers and sedatives.
Schoomaker said he didn’t know whether the number of overdoses among soldiers was on the rise, but would try to provide statistics as soon as possible. The series of deaths was noticed and is getting attention partly because the new units concentrate the Army’s temporarily disabled and ill into special groups, thus making it possible for leaders to track and tabulate their health issues more closely and carefully than ever before.
“We’re dealing now with a group of wounded, ill or injured soldiers that have available to them through the medical system, a constellation of very potent and potentially lethal drugs (when taken) in the wrong combination,” Schoomaker said.
He said a special team of pharmacists and other military officials will meet within days on the subject.
Officials are working to try to prevent such deaths and “alert the soldiers themselves about what the medications they have may do to them,” Schoomaker said.
'Safety net' proposed
Officials want to “put a safety net around those folks who might have either psychological problems or other injuries or illnesses which may make it difficult to manage a constellation of drugs,” he said.
“I don’t believe those are suicides in the conventional sense. I think these are truly accidental deaths,” he said.
Schoomaker brought up the subject of overdoses when asked how he assessed recent preliminary figures indicating a possible rise in Army suicides during 2007.
The figures showed that, as of last month, officials had confirmed 89 suicides last year among active duty and activated National Guard and Reserve — and that another 32 deaths were still under investigation. If all are confirmed, the total of 121 would be nearly a 20 percent increase over 2006.
Soldiers who have killed themselves most commonly have used weapons, not drug overdoses, which accounted for less than 10 percent of suicides in recent years, according to Army figures.
Statistics show accidental overdoses have become a national problem, with the deaths from accidental ingestion of multiple prescription drugs now exceeding deaths from illegal drugs, Schoomaker said.
He was holding a press briefing to talk about the warrior in transition units — three dozen units from which the military now oversees the care of nearly 9,800 outpatient soldiers. That includes nearly 1,400 with battle related injuries and about 8,400 with diseases and non-battle injuries.
Confused with suicides
The Army said approximately 43 percent of them have never been deployed to either the war in Iraq or Afghanistan, noting some have been injured in training, deployments to other places and so on.
Schoomaker said the units are part of a fundamental change the Army has made in its medical system since shoddy outpatient housing and bureaucratic delays were exposed last year at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.
Officials have given greater priority to improving facilities for troops, increasing medical staffing and working with families of disabled soldiers. They have coordinated efforts with the Veterans Administration, for instance reducing by half some of the paperwork needed to get troops their benefits, said Brig. Gen. Michael Tucker, assistant Army surgeon general for transition care.
“It’s been about a year since news reports brought to our attention some serious deficiencies in how we support our outpatient wounded, ill and injured warriors and our families,” Schoomaker said. “In a little less that a year, we have made a major revision to our approach to our care of these soldiers and support of their families.”
Jobless after war: Veterans find tough going
War vets find it hard to get a job
WASHINGTON - Strained by war, recently discharged veterans are having a harder time finding civilian jobs and are more likely to earn lower wages for years, partly because of employer concerns about their mental health and overall skills, a government study says.
The Department of Veterans Affairs report, obtained Thursday by The Associated Press, points to continuing problems with the Bush administration's efforts to help 4.4 million people who have been discharged from active duty since 1990.
The 2007 study by the consulting firm Abt Associates Inc. found that 18 percent of the veterans who sought jobs within one to three years of discharge were unemployed, while one out of four who did find jobs earned less than $21,840 a year. Many had taken advantage of government programs such as the GI Bill to boost job prospects, but there was little evidence that education benefits yielded higher pay or better advancement.
The report blamed the poor prospects partly on inadequate job networks and lack of mentors after extended periods in war. It said employers often had misplaced stereotypes about veterans' fitness for employment, such as concerns they did not possess adequate technological skills, or were too rigid, lacked education or were at risk for post-traumatic stress disorder.
It urged the federal government to consider working with a private-sector marketing firm to help promote and brand war veterans as capable employees, as well as re-examine education and training such as the GI Bill.
"The issue of mental health has turned into a double-edged sword for returning veterans. More publicity has generated more public awareness and federal funding for those who return home different from when they left. However, more publicity, especially stories that perpetuate the 'Wacko Vet' myth, has also made some employers more cautious to hire a veteran," said Joe Davis, spokesman for Veterans of Foreign Wars.
"The federal government needs to accelerate its hiring and training of these young veterans to fill the ranks of the retiring Boomer generation," he said.
'Government may need to reevaluate'
Separately, a Labor Department report obtained by the AP showed that formal job complaints by reservists remained high, citing concerns about denied jobs or benefits after their tried to return to their old jobs after extended tours in Iraq. Reservists filed 1,357 complaints with the department in 2006, the latest figures available, down from nearly 1,600 in 2005, when complaints reached the highest level since 1991.
While complaints declined in 2006, the Labor Department report noted for the first time that figures in the previous years might have been inflated. That's because in some cases a single complaint was double counted after the case was closed in one state and then reopened in another state.
"The military has worked on assisting service members in completing and translating their skills to match equivalent civilian job descriptions; however, training for marketability may require much more preparation than having the ability to improve a resume," the VA study said.
"The federal government may need to reevaluate how it serves the needs of returning service members," it said.
VA begins to hire staff for vet help
A Labor Department spokesman had no immediate comment. A VA spokesman declined to comment, saying the report spoke for itself. Last November, the VA announced the initial hiring of 10 full-time staff as part of an effort to help veterans find jobs at the department.
The two reports come as Congress and the Bush administration seek ways to improve veterans' health care and benefits in light of a protracted Iraq war.
A Pentagon survey of reservists released last year found increasing discontent among returning troops about the government's performance in protecting their legal rights after taking leave from work. Some legal experts have said those numbers may grow once the Iraq war winds down and more troops come home after an extended period in combat.
In recent weeks, some veterans groups and lawmakers have called for an overhaul of the GI Bill, which provides veterans with money to help them further their education.
The difficulty that veterans have had in finding jobs at higher wages has been going on for some time.
The latest VA study, numbering 199 pages, tracked a statistical sample of 1,941 veterans between the ages of 17 and 61, more than half of whom served in the Army. It found that from 1991 to 2003, about 9.5 percent of recent veterans were unemployed within two years of separation from active duty, compared with 4.3 percent for non-veterans of comparable age, gender and education.
The veterans also tended to have lower wages, although total income was often similar when factoring in disability pay and other government benefits, and to be in low-income families, under $29,000 in income, for up to eight years after separation.
Veterans not entitled to mental health care, U.S. lawyers argue
Bush lawyer sticks foot in mouth
Veterans have no legal right to specific types of medical care, the Bush administration argues in a lawsuit accusing the government of illegally denying mental health treatment to some troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.
The arguments, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, strike at the heart of a lawsuit filed on behalf of veterans that claims the health care system for returning troops provides little recourse when the government rejects their medical claims.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is making progress in increasing its staffing and screening veterans for combat-related stress, Justice Department lawyers said. But their central argument is that Congress left decisions about who should get health care, and what type of care, to the VA and not to veterans or the courts.
A federal law providing five years of care for veterans from the date of their discharge establishes "veterans' eligibility for health care, but it does not create an entitlement to any particular medical service," government lawyers said.
They said the law entitles veterans only to "medical care which the secretary (of Veterans Affairs) determines is needed, and only to the extent funds ... are available."
The argument drew a sharp retort from a lawyer for advocacy groups that sued the government in July. The suit is a proposed class action on behalf of 320,000 to 800,000 veterans or their survivors.
"Veterans need to know in this country that the government thinks all their benefits are mere gratuities," attorney Gordon Erspamer said. "They're saying it's completely discretionary, that even if Congress appropriates money for veterans' health care, we can do anything we want with it."
The issue will be joined March 7 at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Samuel Conti, who denied the administration's request last month to dismiss the suit. While the case is pending, the plaintiffs want Conti to order the government to provide immediate mental health treatment for veterans who say they are thinking of killing themselves and to spend another $60 million on health care.
The suit accuses the VA of arbitrarily denying care and benefits to wounded veterans, of forcing them to wait months for treatment and years for benefits, and of failing to provide fair procedures for appealing decisions against them.
The plaintiffs say that the department has a backlog of more than 600,000 disability claims and that 120 veterans a week commit suicide.
In his Jan. 10 ruling that allowed the suit to proceed, Conti said federal law entitles veterans to health care for a specific period after leaving the service, rejecting the government's argument that it was required to provide only as much care as the VA's budget allowed in a given year. A law that President Bush signed last week extended the period from two to five years.
In its latest filing, however, the Justice Department reiterated that Congress had intended "to authorize, but not require, medical care for veterans."
"This court should not interfere with the political branches' design, oversight and modification of VA programs," the government lawyers argued.
They also said the VA "is making great progress in addressing the mental health care needs of combat veterans." Among other things, they cited a law passed in November that required the department to establish a suicide-prevention program that includes making mental health care available around the clock.
The VA has hired nearly 3,800 mental health professionals in the last two years and has at least one specialist in post-traumatic stress disorder at each of its medical centers, the government said.
Since June, government lawyers said, the VA has had a policy that all veterans who seek or are referred for mental health care should be screened within 24 hours, that those found to be at risk of suicide should be treated immediately, and that others should be scheduled for full diagnosis and treatment planning within two weeks. A new suicide-prevention hot line has been responsible for "more than 380 rescues," the lawyers said.
Erspamer, the plaintiffs' lawyer, was unimpressed.
"Nowhere do I see any explanation of what kind of systems they have in place that deal with suicidal veterans," he said. "There's no excuse for not spending the money Congress told them to spend on mental health care and leaving $60 million on the table when people are going out and killing themselves."
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
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We are not charity cases, our nation sent us to war, they have a legal and a moral obligation to care for us, that is the so called "PROMISE" I think Abraham Lincoln would be ashamed of this administration, all these people that claim to be in the Lincoln vainof things, war time President, etc, at least he cared for the war injuries better than these people do, I think he would be ashamed to see his quote used so much by the VA and then have government lawyers argue in court there is no responsibility to provide mental health care. SHAME on President Bush and this administration cheap charlies all plenty of money for war and pinch pennies on the wounded and PTSD is a wound just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not real ask the suicide victims families PTSD does kill
Senate could act on stimulus plan next week
House now backs stimulus package for Seniors and vets
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Economic stimulus legislation aimed at helping avert a U.S. recession might not be passed by the U.S. Senate until as late as Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said on Thursday.
"It would be good if we can finish it today. We may not be able to; procedurally we may have to wait until tomorrow or even Tuesday," Reid said.
On Wednesday, Senate Republicans blocked a $158 billion stimulus measure, largely over objections to providing jobless benefits to long-term unemployed people, a measure backed by Democrats and opposed by President George W. Bush.
But Democrats and Republicans appeared to have agreed to expand a House of Representatives-passed stimulus bill so that rebate checks can be given to retirees and disabled veterans who have little or no earned income.
"We don't have a way forward yet," Reid said after holding private talks with Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Reid said those conversations will continue.
Late on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that chamber was "very receptive" to adding cash payments to retirees and disabled veterans to the $146 billion economic stimulus bill it passed last week, which was backed by Bush.
(Reporting by Donna Smith and Richard Cowan, Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
Last Man standing
Last WW1 vet lives in WV
W.V. WWI Veteran Last in U.S. Save Email Print
TAMPA, Fla. (AP)
Posted: 4:30 AM Feb 7, 2008
Last Updated: 6:36 PM Feb 6, 2008
One of only two known U.S. veterans of World War I has died in Florida.
The Florida Department of Veterans Affairs says 108-year-old Harry Richard Landis died Monday. He had lived at a nursing home in Tampa.
According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, 107-year-old Frank Buckles of Charles Town, West Virginia is the remaining U.S. veteran.
Landis trained as a U.S. Army recruit for 60 days at the end of the war and never went overseas. But the Department of Veterans Affairs counts him among the 4.7 million men and woman who served during the Great War.
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This is strange for me, my own father Melvin Lathrop Bailey SR served in the Army from 1914-1916 as well as my Uncle Gideon, they both served in D Troop 7th Calvary based at Douglas Arizona, they rode with General Pershing on the famous Pancho Villa chase into Mexico. They were both discharged from the Army before WW1 even started. Back then birth certificates weren't checked like they are now, both of his parents had passed his father Joshua Eaton Bailey Nov 1833- April 1900 and his mother Ida Garber Bailey passed in 1912, their older step sister from Ida's frist marriage put them both in the Army my Dad was 14 and Uncle Gid was older, he had been born in 1896. I am proud of my fathers service in the 7th Calvary (thank god he wasn't old enough to be with Custer)
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Senate has better plan for economy
editorial
It's looking all but certain that Congress will pass an economic stimulus bill before mid-February, which isn't necessarily good news. It's questionable whether handing taxpayers a few hundred bucks each would really jolt a sluggish economy, yet there's no doubt at all that it would increase an already scary national debt.
Still, some stimuli are more appealing than others, and if we must have a bill, the Senate has a better plan than the House.
President Bush and House leaders are pleased with the compromise they worked out last week, which calls for about $150 billion in tax rebates and incentives. They're less thrilled with the package subsequently approved by the Senate Finance Committee, which would cost more (how much is a subject of debate), aid the poor and boost the clean-technology industry. That plan, drafted by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is expected to come to the Senate floor today.
The Senate's plan extends unemployment insurance by an additional 13 weeks, provides rebate checks to about 20 million seniors living on Social Security and about 250,000 disabled veterans (neither group would get a penny under the House version), and expands home-heating subsidies. Jobless people and those on fixed incomes are much more likely to spend their rebate checks quickly than those in the middle class, so if the goal is to stimulate spending, this is precisely the population Congress should be targeting.
The Senate addresses one of the biggest failings of last year's energy bill. Wind and solar power installations are growing at a sizzling pace, but that growth is fueled by production tax credits that expire at the end of the year. An extension was stripped from the energy bill because of an unrelated dispute over taxing oil companies. The credits must be extended as quickly as possible because investors won't pump money into clean power if there's a danger of losing their tax incentives. Renewable energy reduces reliance on foreign oil while cutting greenhouse gases and other pollutants. Green technology is an extremely promising growth industry that could help make up for the loss of manufacturing jobs.
The Senate vote has been delayed until today, mainly so that the two Democratic senators still in the presidential race, Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, will have a chance to return to Washington after the Super Tuesday primaries to weigh in (both are expected to support the Baucus plan). That would put the count of those expected to vote in favor at either 58 or 59, according to lobbyists — just shy of the 60 needed to avoid a filibuster. Which means the plan's success or failure could depend on one man, who has kept mum about his stance: Republican candidate John McCain of Arizona.
McCain has made much during the campaign about his determination to combat global warming. If he's the man of conviction he claims to be, he should return to Washington and back the Baucus bill.
| — Los Angeles Times
Employers cannot let disability perceptions limit hiring choices
Hire disabled veterans and other disabled workers
One of Pepsi's Super Bowl ads provides a humorous take on two deaf men who cannot find the Super Bowl party at a friend's house. The ad was devised, written and acted by PepsiCo. employees with disabilities, and it illustrates how the company values its workers with disabilities.
People with disabilities want to work. Employment is key to independence. Today, more than 290,000 people with disabilities are employed in Michigan. They are shopkeepers, salespeople, managers and owners, succeeding at every level of business, government and nonprofit work. Yet, 65% of people with disabilities remain unemployed.
Employers know state and federal laws prohibit discriminating against people with disabilities and require reasonable workplace accommodations. The government also provides three federal tax incentives to encourage hiring people with disabilities:
The Disabled Access Tax Credit allows small businesses to take credits of up to $10,250 annually for 50% of the cost of modifications and accommodations.
The Work Opportunity Tax Credit gives employers a tax credit during the year of hire for certain people with disabilities, up to $2,400 per person ($4,800 for certain disabled veterans).
The Barrier Removal Tax Deduction allows an expense deduction up to $15,000 annually for making facilities and vehicles accessible for employees.
Technology also has removed many barriers in the workplace. People without speech use computers to work and communicate; screen readers make documents, computers and the Internet available to people without sight; scooters and power wheelchairs provide mobility, and high-speed connections make "teleworking" from home viable.
Yet, discrimination still exists. Why? The biggest barrier is the silent questioning going on inside the mind of an employer about an applicant with a disability: "Can she really do the work?"
A few tips in response:
Don't try to picture yourself doing the job with the applicant's disability. You can't know how it will work because you haven't lived with the disability.
Learn how to interview correctly; you'll get the information you need from the applicant and you'll follow the law. For more detail, explore Web sites that describe how employers should interview and hire.
Provide accommodations to workers with disabilities. Having a wheelchair-accessible entry and bathroom makes your office easy to visit for people with disabilities.
Earn and take advantage of tax incentives.
Hiring the right person for the job should not be made harder by letting unspoken perceptions and lack of knowledge about correct interviewing procedures keep employers from missing the opportunity to tap into a talented group of workers.
As the two men in the ad repeatedly honk the car's horn and one after another annoyed homeowner comes to the door, they find the house of their deaf friends, the only ones who hadn't heard the horn. Honking is not how everyone would have solved the problem, but it's a great example of the value of diverse abilities.
Every company should value a diverse set of skills and perspectives in its employees - to face a constantly changing world.
Linda Potter is executive director of United Cerebral Palsy of Michigan
Monday, February 4, 2008
Back to my childhood
Life in the 50's
Memories swell in 1950s house
In Park Forest house decorated for the decade, Baby Boomers have discovered the joys of their youth in an emotional 'trip back home'
A kitchen with white metal cabinets on display at a 1950s museum in Park Forest, Ill. a suburb of Chicago. The 1950s-styled home, turned into a museum, has every room outfitted with authentic 1950s furniture, decorations and technology. Park Forest was built as a model suburban community built after WWII. (Tribune photo by John Smierciak / January 21, 2008)
By Joel Hood | Tribune reporter
February 3, 2008
In the working-class suburb of Park Forest, where history drips from the old Eagle Theater downtown and from the broad, pitched roofs above quiet streets, it would be easy to miss the simple house at 141 Forest Blvd.
But inside the plain, red-brick building is a three-dimensional snapshot of early 1950s Americana: sculpted desks and dressers, Formica and chrome table tops, hand-crank ice crushers and a barrel-bodied Maytag Chieftain washing machine.
On Saturday, the village opened this modest home-museum with an old-fashioned ribbon-cutting ceremony that was itself a tribute to the town's unique past. Forty miles south of Chicago, Park Forest was among the first wave of suburban towns built after World War II specifically to meet the needs of returning veterans and their young families.
Two of the early master-planned communities, Park Forest and northwest suburban Rolling Meadows, have painstakingly restored Mid-Century Modern homes with authentic furniture, appliances and gadgets that bring the colorful post-war period back to life.
For Baby Boomers who came of age in the early 1950s and their parents, the museums can stir up deep emotional connections to that iconic post-war period, organizers say.
For younger generations, they provide a glimpse of domestic life long before microwave ovens and plasma televisions. In doing so, the museums tell the stories of their towns, and of an era.
"You walk in and you see a cereal box you remember as a kid, or a chair your mother used to own; it jogs memories," said Jerry Shnay, an author, president of the town's historical society and retired Tribune reporter. "These aren't just historical memories but cultural memories. Images that you might have forgotten until the memories come rushing back."
While Park Forest has changed -- the old clock tower was torn down, the original Goldblatt's department store was demolished -- the home-museum on the corner of Forest Boulevard and Fir Street remains frozen in time.
Rose- and teal-colored Boonton Ware dishes, among the world's first mass-produced plastic plates, sit atop a green Formica and chrome table in the dinning room. An oval-screen Admiral television in a sturdy mahogany cabinet has been placed in the living room beside embroidered frieze fabric chairs. A rotary phone is positioned by a 1955 calendar touting the City Coal & Coke Company of Chicago Heights.
"It's not that things were simpler in the '50s -- it's that people expected less," said Jane Nicoll, the town's archivist and director of the museum. "What you have to understand is that these were people who were raised in the Depression and had been through years of war. They didn't have the attitude that they had to own everything."
Park Forest, incorporated in 1949, had the distinction of being the very first master-planned community in the country. It was celebrated as a town of the future -- the first modern suburb built from the ground up.
Affordable two-story brick duplexes, laid out over a network of twisting streets, attracted young families by the thousands. The homes were small but comfortable, the yards big enough for children to play. In another perk of life in the 'burbs, there was ample street parking for the Automotive Age that would follow.
"Park Forest at that time was an extraordinary place," said Leona DeLue, 93, whose family was among the first to settle in town in 1948. "They always refer to it as a GI town. But it was much more than that. There were so many children and young families that were really learning to be on their own for the first time."
Which is why organizers were meticulous about the museum's authenticity. Many relics were donated by local residents; others were culled from antique stores, garage sales and the Internet.
There's something unusually poignant about seeing them in this kind of a setting, Nicoll said. Visitors are encouraged to open kitchen drawers and look in closets for hidden treasures, such as an olive drab army coat and antiquated medicines in the bathroom cabinet.
By design, both the Park Forest and Rolling Meadows homes are presented exactly as someone might have arranged theirs in that period, which can be a powerful experience for visitors.
"We get a lot of tears, a lot of gulping," said Marti Roberts, president of Rolling Meadows' historical society. "It's emotional because, for a lot of them, it's like taking a trip back home."
The Park Forest museum is the second created by the town's historical society. The first debuted in 1998 to celebrate the village's 50th anniversary. It was designed to be a temporary exhibit but became so popular that officials decided to keep it up year-round, Nicoll said.
The museum, which will be open Saturdays this month from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., is a couple blocks away from the original, which the previous landlord took back, forcing its closing last May. The new museum is similar, Nicoll said, but is stocked with more mementos.
"From the beginning, we always wanted to tell the story of Park Forest in a way that engaged the public," she said. "With the town's history rooted in the 1950s, it just made sense to start there."
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jhood@tribune.com
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If any of you readers are as old as I am you will be touched by the pictures of this museum as I was. Seeing these pics took me back 50 + years, my moms sewing machin, laundry room, VIM soap, Green Stamps, and all of the rest of it, the toys, the phone, the radio the toaster etc, times were easier, like the aricle said, "we didn't expect as much" back then. There were no computers, or VCR's or anything else, we stayed outside until the street lights came on, playing oh what a simpler time we just didn't know what we were missing lol
