Jerry Alexis – 4/3/05

This page was last updated on April 3, 2005.

Funding is the VA issue; The Rev. Jerry Alexis; Beaver County Times; April 3, 2005.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“On Wednesday, reading Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury cartoon strip, I thought, ‘Oh, oh, the VA’s in for some more bashing.’

“When B.D. is being informed by an Army medical officer that he’ll be transferred from a military hospital to the VA Health System to continue his rehabilitation for his leg amputation from a wound in Iraq, he becomes upset and says, ‘I dunno, you hear stories.’

“I’ve been hearing stories too since the end of World War II. Unfortunately, most of the problems were real because of underfunding that resulted in not very good care.

“But things have changed dramatically in the past 20 years while I’ve been under treatment at the Highland Drive and University VA Medical Centers in Pittsburgh. My many ailments were the result of mistreatment while I was a prisoner of war in Germany.

“I’ve received very competent and compassionate care in their clinics, as have my fellow ex-POWs. I’m sure that the 1,700 patients from the war in Iraq in our local VA facilities and nine others throughout the region are receiving similar care.

“One of the greatest improvements has been in keeping scheduled appointments to a short wait. I’ve found that they’re usually equal to or less than those at civilian medical clinics and doctors’ offices.

“One of the big problems is with a large number of veterans who miss their appointments and fail to notify the VA, which messes up scheduling for others.

“The biggest concern of us veterans right now is the serious underfunding for all veterans programs by the Bush administration and Congress. It looks as though the kind of care I’ve been receiving is doomed for the next generation.”

[RWC] What does Mr. Alexis consider “serious underfunding for all veterans programs by the Bush administration and Congress?”

· VA funding is now higher than at any point in the past ten years, and it’s going up twice as fast under President Bush as under President Clinton.

· Funding for veterans in the first four Bush budgets increased 37.6%. If President Bush gets what he proposed for the 2006 budget, the total increase will be 40.6%. That’s 40.6% in five years compared to 31.6% during Clinton’s eight years.

Is this enough? I don’t know, but it seems wrong to bash President Bush and the current Congress given the rate of increase over the most recent five budgets.