Recently I was in Washington DC attending meetings of The American Legion VA&R Commission. Part of our function is to lobby for increase funding for VA Health Care. Unfortunatedly Congress is not in a mode to provide adequate funding to provide health care to all veterans, particularly those young men and women returning from combat today with loss of limbs, eyes, brain injuries etc. We can not and must not allow our government to send troops into harms way and then not provide them with quality medical care upon their return.
I am asking everyone single veteran to email their congressional representative, their senator and request their support for adequate funding of the VA Healthcare. Without your support, I think those in Category 7&8 may be required to pay up to a $500 enrollment fee each year, plus the copay for medication could go to $15 per presciption. Although many of the veterans in those categories have a lot of assets, they are not readily converted to liquid assets. This could drive many veterans currently receiving health care out of the system and receiving no health care at all because they can not afford insurance premiums or drug costs on the outside.
It does not matter what party you vote for because VA benefits and health care should be non-partisan. It is not a matter of who supports what, it is the right thing to do.
Ted Duckworth
Juneau Co. VSO