A copy of the letter is below:
March 14, 2008
The Honorable James B. Peake, MD
Secretary of Veterans Affairs
810 Vermont Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20420
Dear Secretary Peake:
We write to ask you to address the ban on enrollment of middle-income veterans - so-called Priority 8 veterans - who wish to receive their health care through VA. VA's own estimates suggest that as many as 1.5 million middle-income veterans are still awaiting, or have been denied, enrollment. Many earn as little as $28,430 per year.
As Secretary, you have full authority to redefine the income threshold for eligibility, and we urge you to do so in order to allow more veterans entry into the VA health care system. You stated before the Senate Committee on February 13, 2008, that you would be willing to examine raising the threshold and would work with the Committee to this end. We are following up on that pledge.
The President banned enrollment of new Priority 8 veterans on January 17, 2003. The rationale for the ban was overcrowding in the VA health care system. Yet, in testimony before the Senate Committee on February 13, 2008, you stated that VA is on track to "virtually eliminate the waiting list [for health care appointments] by the end of next year."
Given that Congress recently provided VA, in the Fiscal Year 2008 Consolidated Appropriations Act, with a record funding increase of $6.7 billion over Fiscal Year 2007, we believe that VA has the capacity and resources to serve more middle-income veterans. We also note that many Priority 8 veterans have private health care coverage and would be subject to existing copayments for care. These veterans would effectively bring revenue into the system and would offset some of the cost of their care.
Mr. Secretary, we urge you to investigate real options for re-opening the VA health care system to middle-income veterans. We look forward to working with you to meet our mutual obligation to those who have served our country.
Sincerely,
Daniel K. Akaka
Bob Filner
John D. Rockefeller IV,
Patty Murray,
Barack Obama
Bernard Sanders
Sherrod Brown
Jim Webb
Jon Tester
Corrine Brown
Michael H. Michaud
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin
John J. Hall
Shelley Berkley
Ciro Rodriguez
Joe Donnelly
Jerry McNerney
Zachary T. Space
Harry E. Mitchell
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
Congress asks VA Secretary to open VA doors to Category 8 veterans
Monday, March 24, 2008
VBA Regional Director Receives $50,000 in Bonuses
VBA Regional Director Receives $50,000 in Bonuses, While Facing Numerous Discrimination Complaints
Union Calls on VA to Launch Investigation into Regional Director's
Abuse of Authority
COLUMBIA, S.C., March 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The American
Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) today challenged the Department
of Veterans Affairs to remove Carl Hawkins, Jr., regional director at the
Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) in Columbia, S.C. amid allegations
of sexual harassment, age discrimination, and racial discrimination. Over
the last two years, the VBA regional director and his managers have been
named in dozens of discrimination suits including allegations of pay
disparity, retaliation and violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act
of 1964, resulting in civil and administrative settlements of over
$500,000. However, instead of being removed from his post, Hawkins received
$50,000 in bonuses over the same two-year time span. AFGE has called on the
National VA to launch an investigation to uncover Hawkins' abuses of
authority since taking office.
"The tragedy here is not just that the VA has not held Mr. Hawkins
accountable for the $500,000 dollars he has cost the American tax-payers,
but that as a result of his despicable actions, the quality of service at
our facility is suffering," said Dan Brockway, president of AFGE Local 520,
which represents 200 employees at the Columbia facility. "We are here
because we want to serve Veterans that have so courageously served this
nation. The harassment and discrimination perpetrated by Mr. Hawkins
tarnishes everything that the VA is supposed to be about."
According to local union representatives, Mr. Hawkins continually
ignored directives from the National Department of Veterans Affairs aimed
at eliminating pay disparity among certain employees. "We have to be the
only facility in the country where GS-4s hold degrees," added Ron Robinson,
executive vice-president at AFGE Local 520.
Mr. Hawkins has removed several bridge positions, denying employees
with college level education an opportunity to elevate their positions and
grade levels. The employees being denied are overwhelmingly
African-American. "Of the 34 management positions filled by Mr. Hawkins
since January 2002, none of them are African-American women and only three
are African-American men," said Robinson.
AFGE Local 520 is working closely with AFGE National's Women's and Fair
Practices departments to continue to challenge the discriminatory workplace
conditions. The Women and Fair Practices department recently held a summit
at the location along with representatives from AFGE's 5th District, to
educate employees on their rights to a hostile free workplace environment.
The American Federation of Government Employees is the largest federal
employee union, representing 600,000 workers in the federal government and
the government of the District of Columbia.
SOURCE American Federation of Government Employees
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maybe this is why my VA claim in Columbia is in it's 6th year of appeals bad management?
Wounded Veterans and Their Families, a Journey Without Maps
How much more can this country keep demanding of Justin Bunce, Daniel Verbeke and Michael McMichael?
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The Board Blog
Additional commentary, background information and other items by Times editorial writers.
Go to The Board » The men — a marine, a sailor and a National Guardsman — went to Iraq to fight as ordered, served honorably and suffered grave injuries. When they came home another struggle began, to find the care to make them whole again.
At a recent hearing in Washington before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, the men’s families told anguished tales of trips through bureaucratic hell in the transition between the Defense Department and the Department of Veterans Affairs. That terrain is notorious for its paperwork mountains and tripwires of red tape, but especially treacherous for those with traumatic brain injuries, the signature affliction of this five-year-old war.
Mr. Bunce lost an eye in a roadside bomb blast that also thrust shrapnel into his frontal lobe. His father, Peter, said his care was so “stovepiped,” with nobody knowing what anyone else was doing, that doctors working on his head ignored his broken leg. Technicians nearly did an M.R.I. on his brain, not realizing — because scans had not been done — the danger from the metal in his skull. Nobody tried to coordinate his many medications.
Time and again his parents had to cross the country looking for the right therapies and treatment. Whatever expertise they found they stumbled on; there was no one but them to manage his case. The V.A. relied on the brain-damaged young corporal to evaluate his own mental state, and once sent him a letter threatening to cut off benefits because he could not manage his affairs.
Mr. Verbeke’s injuries, in a shipboard accident, were catastrophic. He cannot speak or control his limbs, though he can laugh and smile. His father, Robert, told of years of battling with the V.A. over treatment, tests, prescriptions and plans for therapy and assistance at home. “They can’t plan or execute,” he said. “The only logical conclusion is that they just don’t care.”
The bomb blasts that crushed Mr. McMichael’s vertebrae and damaged his brain did not take his life, at least not all at once. When he came home he seemed intact, but it soon became clear that his psyche was in shreds. His behavior put him in constant danger of losing his independence, his composure and dignity, his home, his family.
His wife, Jackie, has refused to let that happen. As a National Guard spouse not immersed in military life, she had to rely on doggedness and patience and large measures of self-tutoring. It took her a year and a half, on her own, to assemble a support network for her husband.
That forced self-reliance is the most difficult and baffling part of these veterans’ struggles. Had they lost arms or legs, the process would have been much easier. But the quest for care for psychic injuries takes place on a landscape without maps. All three families said that doctors and therapists were constantly handing out business cards, friendly advice and vague offers of help, but that it was nearly impossible to find firm guidance and quick, flexible, responsive care.
At the hearing, representatives of the Pentagon and V.A. played to type, laying down a bewildering fog of acronyms and promises. Their central point was that things were moving now, that the two departments were “in the process of implementing more than 400 recommendations of five major studies.”
One involved hiring eight “recovery coordinators” to oversee care for 46 people. That’s a droplet of care in an ocean of need: about 3,000 veterans have sustained traumatic injuries, by some rough estimates, and untold thousands of others are afflicted by post-traumatic stress disorder.
The U.S. Naval Institute reported last month on the staggering immensity of paperwork that veterans confront. Defense Department records are on paper and often incomplete; the V.A.’s are electronic. Service members have to carry records between departments, never knowing what might be missing.
The three families in this article were unusually, perhaps stunningly, well equipped to overcome those hurdles. Robert Verbeke is a corporate executive. So is Peter Bunce, who worked at the Pentagon as the Air Force’s liaison to the House of Representatives. His wife, Patty, is an occupational therapist. Jackie McMichael has a master’s degree in counseling, and practically grew up at the V.A. hospital in Durham, N.C., where her mother worked.
As Ms. McMichael testified, Michael sat behind her, his back straight, hands gripping a cane and shaking so hard they looked as if they were plugged into something. Peace has not arrived for him, and may not come anytime soon.
He is lucky in many ways: he has two young children and a wife who loves him and has sacrificed so much to travel the bureaucratic labyrinth for him. It is more than anyone could ask, but far less than any wounded soldier deserves.
“I am educated, tenacious and resourceful,” Ms. McMichael said of her work as a self-taught case manager. “And I was completely lost.”
Wounded Veterans and Their Families, a Journey Without Maps
Rob Miller for Congress
Rob Miller for Congress
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Email Update Sign UpTeamwork, Dedication, Commitment
A new generation of leadership is poised to get America back on track. Rob Miller, back home from fighting in Iraq, is a member of that generation and is committed to bringing new energy and new ideas as our representative in Washington. Rob will listen to the voters and work with members of both parties.
A Marine captain who served two tours in Iraq, Rob came back home to realize that what we were fighting for there is what we are fighting for here—safe neighborhoods and schools, good roads and bridges, decent health care, and most importantly, new jobs geared to the high-paying opportunities of the global economy. Rob envisions our community as an incubator of innovation and entrepreneurialism. He also realizes that the long-term protection of our interests must be based on the education and health of our children.
Join Rob in his campaign for change and his fight for the future.
Rob Miller for Congress
219 Scott's Street
Beaufort, SC 29902-5554
843-522-6841
info@RobMillerForCongress.com
Rob Miller is running for Congress to bring change, real leadership, and a get-it-done mentality back to the Second District of South Carolina. Having learned the value of courage, integrity, and hard work on the streets of Iraq, Rob understands first hand what it means to be a true servant leader.
Shared Values
Born and raised in South Carolina, Rob’s roots and commitment to the Palmetto State run deep. Like most South Carolinians, he is an ardent believer in our shared values of family, service, country, and God.
Rob is the younger of two sons of a Navy veteran who fell in love with and married a South Carolina girl. At the age of 14, Rob’s father passed away, and his family found themselves with mounting medical bills and missing their family anchor. Encircled by their extended family, his mother pushed through and scraped by with their support. Rob came out of that experience with a true understanding of the value of family and community; lessons that continue to guide his life.
Rob first heard his call to service as a freshman in college. Realizing that his duty and purpose are to serve his family, his nation, and God, Rob took stock of himself and what he had to contribute and found his home in the United States Marine Corps.
Following basic training at Parris Island, Rob was assigned to Camp Lejeune, and the first of many deployments followed shortly thereafter. These experiences served to sharpen his worldview, to reinforce the value of freedom, and to strengthen his commitment to democracy. As an enlisted Marine, Rob grew to understand true leadership and the comfort and confidence a good leader can bring to any fight.
In 1998, Rob was honored with a selection for the Marine Enlisted Commissioning Program, and returned to his native state to attend the University of South Carolina. Upon completing his degree, Rob was commissioned as a Marine Corps Officer and returned his focus to service and our nation’s work overseas.
Twice deployed to Iraq, as our nation took the fight to our enemy’s door in Mosul, Haditha, and Fallujah, Rob saw firsthand the skill, courage, and commitment of his fellow men and women in uniform. When he returned home to South Carolina as a training commander at Parris Island, Rob also began to fully appreciate the true joy of being a parent, as he got to know his then three-year-old son Robert Jr., who had been rapidly growing up while he was deployed overseas.
While working as a Company Commander aboard Parris Island and helping to raise his son, Rob began to see that the country he had sworn to defend was off track. He knows our ideas, hopes, and values are still as strong as ever, but he cannot ignore that our schools, our roads and bridges, and our communities are faltering. Rob believes that we, as a nation, can do better; that we must do better; and that the time has come for change.
Shared Hopes
Rob Miller believes in a secure America, where our families and neighbors can live their lives without fear of violence, illness, or poverty. That’s why he put on a uniform more than a decade ago.
Rob believes in an America that thrives with economic security and prosperity, where we can live without fear of losing our homes, our savings, or our retirement and can afford to send our sons and daughters to college. He believes in an America where our children have access to the best health care in the world and an America that has the best schools and opportunities available to every child. He believes in an America that thrives with rivers and lakes and air and land that are clean and that we can be proud to pass on to our grandchildren.
Through his wife Shane’s experiences as a small business owner in Beaufort, Rob has also gained first hand experience of the dreams, and the challenges, that businesses and their employees around our state are facing.
Rob believes in an America where our military families and our veterans are taken care of and the sacrifices they make honored.
Leadership for Change
Rob will tell you the best job he’s had yet was his time as a Marine Rifle Squad leader. Working with real people, face-to-face, finding solutions to problems. Real people, real challenges, real leadership. These are the lessons the Marine Corps has instilled in Rob Miller, and these are the qualities that are too often missing from our leaders today.
We are a nation of immigrants, but now we find ourselves with an immigration crisis on our hands, and our leaders are unable or unwilling to solve these problems. The same is true for our schools, our infrastructure, and our economy. Rob Miller believes we can do better. He believes that problems have solutions, and that good leaders make solutions a reality.
The Marine Corps trained Rob Miller to fight, to serve and to lead, and with your support, this is what he will do for South Carolina.
U.S. Death #4,001 in Iraq -- But It Doesn't Count?
U.S. Death #4,001 in Iraq -- But It Doesn't Count?
Each one of the 4,000 U.S. military deaths in Iraq is significant and tragic but one that doesn't yet count -- let's call him #4001 -- offers more of a clue to the true dimensions of the war than most of the rest.
Sgt. James W. McDonald, 26, who had undergone extensive head and facial surgery after an IED blast in Iraq last May, was found dead in his barracks apartment at Ft. Hood last November. It has not been labeled suicide or accidental -- but also, somehow, not counted as related to his service in Iraq.
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Buzz up!on Yahoo!"I don't want it to be an undetermined cause of death," his mother, Joan McDonald of Neenah, Wisc., says. "That is ridiculous." She has asked Sen. Russ Feingold to help get some answers.
An autopsy could not determine the exact cause of death, but medical experts couldn't rule out that "traumatic brain injury" might have been a factor, a base spokeswoman said.
"If my son was not at the war, he would not be dead, plain and simple," the mother tells AP. "He was a strong healthy boy. ... Don't tell me it was unrelated to the war. I will never accept that."
Tom Wilborn, a spokesman for Disabled American Veterans in Washington, told AP the question of whether McDonald was an official war casualty was the first that he was aware of from the Iraq war. "But it happened a lot during Vietnam," he said.
A Government Accountability Office study found that of soldiers who required a medical evacuation for battle-related injuries in Iraq or Afghanistan, 30 percent suffered a traumatic brain injury.
Joan McDonald says her son helped build a memorial wall at Fort Hood to honor its soldiers killed in Iraq. "I want his name on that wall," she said.
*
Greg Mitchell's new book is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits-- and the President -- Failed in Iraq. It features a preface by Bruce Springsteen and foreword by Joe Galloway, and has been hailed by our own Arianna, Bill Moyers, and Glenn Greenwald, among others.
Military Health Budget Underfunded
Note: More about that promised free health care for Retiree's, never
delivered
Military Health Budget Underfunded
Tom Philpott | March 20, 2008
Military Health Budget Again Hit by Bogus "Savings"
http://www.military.com/features/0,15240,164397,00.html
Bush administration officials again have saddled Congress with an
underfunded military health care budget by projecting $1.2 billion in
savings they know will not be realized, say critics on Capitol Hill.
Part of the false savings, for a third straight year, is tied to the
unlikely scenario that Congress will enact administration plans to raise
TRICARE fees, co-payments and deductibles for military retirees. Key
lawmakers have vowed anew not to allow this.
But what irritates lawmakers more is that, even if they did embrace the
higher fees recommended by the Department of Defense's Task Force on the
Future of Military Health Care, and penciled into Bush's fiscal 2009 defense
budget, the actual savings realized wouldn't come close to matching the
number that the administration projects.
Most of the $1.2 billion in assumed savings swing on a the notion that if
fees, co-pays and deductibles are raised for retirees, tens of thousands of
current and future users of TRICARE will drop the military benefit and
switch to alternative health insurance offered by second-career employers.
That scenario defies logic, however, as even the co-chair of DoD's task
force on military health care bluntly stated during a March 12 hearing of
the House armed services' military personnel subcommittee.
"With all due respect to the department, there's nothing they're going to do
which is going to make TRICARE more expensive than what goes on in the
private sector," said Dr. Gail R. Wilensky, a prominent healthcare
economist. "I know they have used that argument. I don't know what they're
thinking. I don't agree with it."
The bottom line is that DoD, again, is intentionally shorting military
health care budgets, which means Congress either will have to add money to
the defense budget's top line or will have to find ways to squeeze $1.2
billion from other defense accounts.
Rep. John McHugh (N.Y.), ranking Republican on the subcommittee, noted that
the false savings built into the '09 budget will be harder for the armed
services committees to overcome this year.
"How this committee will find the means to restore that $1.2 billion cut
will be an especially difficult challenge because the House Budget
resolution, which opposes the TRICARE fee increases, does not add funding to
restore DOD's assumed savings," McHugh said in an opening statement.
McHugh vowed that the money will be found.
Though disavowing the Pentagon's proposed savings from higher fees, Wilensky
warned that they shouldn't remain frozen as they have been since TRICARE
began in 1995. Over time, she said, the government's cost share will reach a
point where taxpayers cover nearly all military health costs while the cost
for beneficiaries "approaches zero."
"We recognize the sacrifice [military] people made. The kinds of benefits
that are being provided are, we estimate, into the 90th percentile of [those
provided by] the largest employers in the country," said Wilensky.
That is as it should be, she said.
"We just didn't think Congress meant to have zero cost growth, or very close
to zero cost growth, to beneficiary contributions," Wilensky said.
McHugh and Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) suggested that Congress won't allow
fee increases unless they are endorsed by service associations who lobby
lawmakers on behalf of beneficiaries.
But Dr. S. Ward Casscells, the assistant secretary of defense for health
affairs who testified along side Wilensky, said association leaders have
told him they are "willing to see a gradual increase in TRICARE fees,
co-pays and deductibles as long as it's not more than within the private
sector. Because they don't want to rob theater care" to address the rising
cost of retiree care.
McHugh was incredulous.
"Are you telling this panel that the [veteran service organizations] support
the increases that are contained in the DoD budget proposal?"
VSO leaders, Casscells clarified, "are not in favor of an abrupt increase in
fees, co-pays or deductibles" that "would catch up [for] the past 12 years
when [fees were] flat." But they do "recognize that you can't go for another
10 years without some increase in fees and co-pays and deductibles because
they know that at some point this will eat into theater care, combat
casualty care and force readiness."
"If you could get any of that in writing," said McHugh, "I would love to see
it."
Representatives of The Military Coalition, an umbrella group that include
scores of service associations and veteran organizations, have testified
previously that it is unfair for DoD officials to keep fees flat for more
than a decade and then try to double or triple them in a few years.
The coalition wants Congress to establish principles regarding military
health benefits to protect their value from the whims of politicians and
policymakers, and to establish limits on future beneficiary cost increases.
For example, fees increases for retirees and survivor beneficiaries in any
given year should not exceed the percentage increase in retired pay or
survivor compensation, the coalition maintains.
The coalition opposes the level of fee increases sought by the
administration and specifically objects to imposing new enrollment fees on
users of TRICARE Standard and TRICARE for Life. It also opposes "tiering" of
fees and co-payments based on rank at retirement or level of retired pay.
The coalition argues that retirees paid large "up-front premiums" for their
health care coverage through career of arduous service.
To comment, e-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box
231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111 or visit: militaryupdate.com.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
Laws urges servicemen to claim
Laws urges servicemen to claim
YEOVIL MP David Laws has urged veterans who were "experimented upon" at the Ministry of Defence's chemical laboratories at Porton Down to put in claims for any health problems they may have suffered.
From the 1940s to the 1980s servicemen were exposed to various chemical agents including sarin and mustard gas.
Veterans have stated that they were not informed about the nature of the chemical agents or the associated health risks. Many were simply told that they were assisting in finding a cure for the common cold.
Claims must be made to the Ministry of Defence by June 30, 2008.
And Mr Laws said: "The Ministry of Defence behaved abysmally towards some servicemen who took part in experiments at Porton Down, and it is only right that they should put in claims for compensation.
"I would urge all affected veterans to explore whether they have grounds for a claim, either by contacting the Volunteers Helpline or their solicitor."
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I do NOT understand why they HAVE to sign up by June 30,2008 to be able to receive veterans benefits, the system is totally different than here in the US, as veterans we can file a claim at anytime for compensation and service connection for medical problems we feel are related to things that happened to us during military service.
I do feel the Department of Defense and the Veterans Administration have done very limitied and restricted outreach to our own veterans used at Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland, Fort Detrick, Maryland, Dugway, Utah, Fort Richardson, Alaska (Cold Weather Training Area) plus dozens of smaller locations where single experiments were conducted kind of like a "drive by" there are the ones I know about the their names MKULTRA (infamous LSD experiments) MKSEARCH, NAOMI, Bluebird, Artichoke, SHAD/112, Tuskegee Syphlis experiments (they have been notified) the GAO released this report on February 28, 2008 to show that DOD has given up even trying to "find" these veterans CHEMICAL AND BIOLOGICAL DEFENSE
DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests
Our nation has failed these veterans and their families and especially the widows and children left behind by husbands and fathers that do NOT have a clue that they may eveb be entitled to compensation from the government if their loved ones death can be linked to the toxic substances they were exposed to either in the "tests" or by environmental agents (Edgewood Arsenal has 77 toxic substances in the drinking water and soil of the base) this base has been used as a chemical weapons research center since 1917, and they have been dumping or burying old wooden and metal barrles for nearly a century, they stopped the practices in the 70's.
This nation owes these veterans a lot more than they are doing for them, a little honesty would go a long ways these days, or even the "benefit of the doubt" on compensation claims, if National sucurity demands they not discuss the experiments or the tests, then award the claim based on the available data from the CDC in Atlanta. They know what the chemical cause in humans, they have the best research database in the world.
