Veterans' Care in America

With Memorial Day around the corner, it is not only a time for us Americans to look back at the sacrifices our service men and women have made for our country, but also how we as a country have returned the favor.
Libertarians may often be caricatured as heartless and rigid individualists, but I, for one, am of the belief that care of our nation’s veterans is a permissible, indeed essential, function of the Federal government. After all, is not the United States government—and by extension, the American people—an employer of military personnel in defense of the nation at large?
Unfortunately, however, veterans’ care has been overburdened the last several years by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2001, the Veterans Administration’s budget was approximately $49 billion; ten years later the VA’s budget sits at around $125 billion, a result of an influx of over 330,000 veterans in need of assistance and the hiring of more “claims processors” to sift through mounds of paperwork that multiply daily. As of last year, there were somewhere around one million unprocessed claims that are being processed individually at a sluggish rate of 162 days per claim, with the occasional misplacement to boot. To look at it in a different way, each claims officer is expected to meet a daily quota of 3.5 claims today, which for the most part has been proven to be more than one claims officer can handle.

Compounding the issue are the dreadful side-effects that accompany the broken benefit claims system. Without adequate government support, veterans in some instances feel like burdens on their loved ones amidst harsh economic times, and must cope with troubling realities, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The suicide rate for these veterans now emerging from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan is telling. As many as 950 veterans commit suicide each month on average, which amounts to a staggering 18 per day. This is not to mention the innumerable attempts at suicide by beleaguered veterans, of which seven percent are successful. Sadly, eleven percent of those who are unsuccessful attempt suicide again within nine months.
In fairness, the VA’s opaqueness is understandable: it is forced to deal with the collateral damage of American foreign policy with little monetary backing, and such underfunding (combined with present pressures and backlogs) is the taproot for veterans’ malaise. The VA hospital in Portland, Oregon is a prime example of Federal oversight that impacts thousands. In 2005, the hospital needed $13 million and only received $2 million, forcing it to dip into its discretionary funds and leaving it understaffed by some 150 staff members. Consequently, only 120 of 400 beds are even operational. The lengths of waiting lists for operations approach the absurd. One VA clerk retold a particularly painful tale in which he had called a veteran at the top of a waiting list only to discover he had passed away while in queue. Under such conditions, how can the VA expect to recruit reliable medical staff to adequately provide for our nation’s veterans?
For sure, there are veterans’ hospitals that maintain semblances of responsibility and even excellence, as the Congressional Budget Office is sure to expound in its luminous reports of VA care, but such reports are belied by national surveys conducted by veterans’ groups. The American Legion launched a Regional Office Action Review (ROAR) survey in January this year that asked veterans to rate the treatment received at their regional VA clinics. Contrary to CBO testimony, the survey “revealed inconsistent treatment programs for female veterans, ridiculously low mileage reimbursements for rural veterans forced to travel hundreds of miles to see VA doctors, and spotty help for veterans with dementia or Alzheimer’s disease.”
Virtually no politician on the Hill would publicly announce an intended cut on VA spending. Libertarian-leaning senator Rand Paul (R-KY) insists on maintaining the VA’s 2011 budget in his most recent five-year budget proposal to balance the Federal budget. While this is the noble and sensible route to take, it is inadequate in the face of mounting pressures placed on the system by battlefield realities. The best way to honor our armed servicemen and women at home is to scale back our military operations in the Middle East and use the funds that would be dedicated to combat on veterans. It may seem like an oversimplification, and it is to some extent, but I cannot see any more desirable alternative given the budget stalemate and ensuing partisanship over it of late.
The current defense budget calls for around $159 billion for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq; by pulling out incrementally, as the President intends to, a few billion could be reallocated into veterans’ care based on sectors of most dire need within the VA, such as the Portland hospital referenced earlier. This way, over time, the pressures on the nation’s VA clinics will become more diffuse and over time, the VA budget will be able to accommodate the entire population of American veterans and maintain a more reasonable portion of the Defense budget.
So this Memorial Day, we pay tribute to those who have fallen in serving the American people. But let us look beyond those who have fallen, and see those who remain damaged as a result of war. Let us remember their sacrifices. In doing so, let us reflect at the job we as a country, government, and people have done in returning the favor. It is not easy, and requires a blunt self-appraisal of our national priorities, but in the end, we must rethink the necessary steps to rectifying a broken system.
Photo Credit: Chicago Tribune