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From: Las Cruces MRGRG <cre…@zianet.com>
Cc: Health Care <healthc…@west-point.org>; NM-MRGRG
<MRGRG…@egroups.com>; >      1) DoD tightens blood donor safety criteria
>      2) Commissary web site makes shopping easier
>      3) ***General Paul Tibbets Online Conference***
>      4) House Boosts Disability Compensation for Veterans
>      5) DoD Targets Ecstasy
>      6) VA Committee Chairman Smith Opposes Elections on Veterans Day
>      7) Smith Introduces Bill to Increase Help for Homeless Veterans
>      8) Moran Bill to Provide Service Dogs to Disabled Veterans
> Date: Fri, 03 Aug 2001 14:04:29 -0700

> Subject: House Boosts Disability Compensation for Veterans

> HOUSE PASSES SMITH BILL BOOSTING VETERANS

>  DISABILITY PAYMENTS BY $2.5 BILLION OVER 5 YEARS

> Fully Disabled Veterans to See $767 Increase;

> Cost-of-Living Adjustment Predicted to Be 2.7%

> WASHINGTON, D.C. – The House on Tuesday overwhelmingly passed the fourth
> major veterans legislation of the year and second major benefits package,
a
> bill Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Smith (NJ-4) and Ranking
> Democrat Lane Evans (IL-17) touted as increasing compensation to 2.3
> million
> disabled veterans or their surviving dependents by granting them a 2.7
> percent Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) beginning this December 1.

> H.R. 2540, the Veterans Benefits Act of 2001, would also correct what
Smith
> called a "Catch -22" in which a Gulf War veteran would lose his
> compensation
> for a poorly defined illness once the illness was diagnosed.

> The veterans or survivors who would gain from this measure, Smith said,
> included "more than 170,000 veterans rated 100 percent disabled who would
> get an additional $767 each year added to their existing benefit."

How big of Congress is this?  Congress has given themselves an automatic
COLA raise that is now about $5,000 per year at the currnet rates.  They
have received more in pay and benefits COLA in the last 4 years than a
Veteran gets in total Pay.  When are they going to make changes so that
Disabled Veterans at least receive the average wage equilivant that they
could have received had they not served their Country?  How pathetic to pay
some of these losers $140,000 per year and more for their committees,
$900,000 for their expenses while at the same time they give tremendous
breaks to the top 1-2%,  which includes most of them.  Then they pat
themselves on the back for giving Veterans $64 per month,  $15 per week
COLA.  And then the appalling terms of their health care is another outrage
while Congress enjoys top of the line care.  They are talking about an
experiment with Veterans health care to enable to let them use their local
hospital.  But they are only doing that if it is more than 2 hours away.
How outrageous.  Would Dick Cheney accept a two hour trip for
hospitalization?  How appalling when we have the spectical of Gary Condit as
one of those congressmen?  And no one is speaking out about the type of
people that end up getting elected with the lack of character,  honesty,
and integrity that we see in them.  They continue to avoid Campaign Finance
Reform so they can continue to elect these empty suit crooks to Congress.
It is time to throw these bums out of office.

> The COLA increase, Smith said, "matches the Social Security COLA and will
> raise payments to disabled veterans by more than $400 million in the first
> year and $543 million over the next four years.  In all, compensation
> payments will be increased by more than $2.5 billion over the next five
> years."
> "The one-size-fits-all standard doesn’t reflect local costs of living and
> either denies some veterans a full range of health care or forces them to
> make copayments they wouldn’t have to make if they lived somewhere else,"
> Moran said.  "The current VA income floor of $23,688 can mean two very
> different things, depending on where a veteran lives and their economic
> situation."
> The third key provision authorizes $50 million a year for a four-year,
> four-site pilot project in which an enrolled veteran who lives too far
from
> an urban VA hospital could be referred on a volunteer basis to a local
> hospital for short-stay general medical-surgical inpatient care.  Under
> this
> provision:

> ·       Care would be managed by selected VA outpatient clinics where 70
> percent of the veterans served live at least two hours driving distance
> from
> a supervising VA hospital;

> ·       VA could make co-payments required by the participating veterans’
> health plans or third-party insurers, including Medicare, and ;

> ·       VA would manage and coordinate admissions to local hospitals and
> take steps to return the veterans to VA follow-up care as soon as
> practicable.