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 Vallarta Living | Veteran Affairs | February 2007 
Vets Face More Health Care Cuts
 David Lord - PVNN
| | James Schulze walks to the grave of his son, Jonathan. One month ago, Jonathan, an Iraq war veteran who had two Purple Hearts, asked his local Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota about seeking help for suicidal thoughts related to PTSD. He was sent home and told he was on a waiting list. Four days later he hanged himself. (Bill Greene/Boston Globe) |
Even though the cost of providing medical care to veterans has been growing by leaps and bounds as the number of people returning from Iraq with illnesses or injuries keep rising, White House budget documents assume a cutback in 2008.
Excerpts from an article released by the Associated Press on February 13, 2007:
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration's budget assumes funding cuts for veterans' health care two years from now. The proposed cuts are unrealistic in light of recent VA budget trends - its medical care budget has risen every year for two decades and 83 percent in the six years since Bush took office.
The number of veterans coming into the VA health care system has been rising by about 5 percent a year as the number of people returning from Iraq with illnesses or injuries keep rising.
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans represent almost 5 percent of the VA's patient case load, many are returning from battle with grievous injuries requiring costly care, such as traumatic brain injuries.
All told, the VA expects to treat about 5.8 million patients next year, including 263,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan last year. The cuts come even as the number of veterans from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is expected to increase 26 percent next year.
David's View: A while back, I wrote about the use of D.U. (depleted Uranium tipped shells) in Iraq. Last night, CNN finally carried a story stating that the military has acknowledged that the men sent to Iraq were never warned of the dangers of radiation exposure. Now they are back home and suffering the consequences.
According to my calculations, given that three thousand three hundred tons of D.U. munitions exploded, and the resulting contamination of primarily all of the areas in southern Iraq where the weapons have been used, the influx of veterans to the V.A. health care system must be prepared for now.
The health effects on veteran's offspring was evidenced by the deformed limbs of one vet's child, which was shown in the CNN interview. The Vets will emit radiation from their person for as long as they shall live, and that life will be filled with medical needs that must be put in place at the V.A.
To make matters worse, a recent article by the former Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswire, Jason Leopold, sized up the Bush administration's conspiracy that led Americans into the war, and their subsequent attempts to cover-up the findings of the intelligence community that said Iraq was not an immediate threat:
"Paul Wolfowitz, former under secretary of defense, has been identified in recently released grand jury transcripts as being involved in a White House smear campaign against Joseph Wilson, the former US ambassador who accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq War." You can read the entire article HERE.
The scary part of this is the size of the conspiracy leading Americans into the war in Iraq. I should have guessed the degree of involvement by the number of shadow players of President Bush's administration who are working for their view of a better world order.
With the story unfolding about the way America was lied into war, in the end we will have nothing but the shame to remember this bizarre Bush Administration by.
 David Lord served in Vietnam as combat Marine for 1st Battalion 26th Marines, during which time he was severely wounded. He received the Purple Heart and the Presidential Unit Citation for his actions during the war in Vietnam. In Mexico, David now represents all veterans south of the U.S. border all the way to Panama, before the V.A. and the Board of Veterans Appeals. David Lord provides service to veterans at no fee. Veterans are welcome to drop in and discuss claims/benefits to which they are entitled by law at his office located at Bayside Properties, 160 Francisca Rodriguez, tel.: 223-4424, call him at home 299-5367, on his cell: 044 (322) 205-1323, or email him at mophmx@@yahoo.com or david.lord@yahoo.com.
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