(Official Washington Examiner editorial, Nov. 11) Year after year, presidential administration after administration, people across the political spectrum agree that U.S. military veterans deserve better treatment. Alas, despite genuinely good intentions, services to veterans seem to improve only at the margins.
On this Veterans Day, let’s stop nibbling at reforms within the current system. Let’s refashion the system itself.
First, consider the statistics. The U.S. veteran population is about 18.6 million. The federal government alone spends about $325 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs and for veterans’ benefits. If that money were just spent in direct grants to veterans, it would amount to more than $174,000 per person per year, even to the ones who need no aid at all. And that doesn’t count all the money spent by state government veterans’ affairs departments or by the hundreds of philanthropic veterans’ associations and aid groups.
Granted, services obviously should be targeted to specific needs rather than just doled out willy-nilly, and budgets must account for administrative costs combined with the naturally high price of specialized care. Still, that’s a lot of money and effort being devoted to veterans’ causes — and not without considerable benefits. Nonetheless, for all that cash, an observer should expect better results than some parts of the veteran community receive.
While the Department of Veterans Affairs in recent years has noticeably improved (lessened) the wait times for medical appointments and treatments, in many cases doing better than private sector alternatives, the efficiency and level of service are notoriously spotty. Some facilities and some regions of the country do much worse than others in terms of both timeliness and quality of care…..
Veterans deserve better — more bang for the buck, more effective help for the ones who do need it, wherever they are, even if they live far from a veterans treatment center.
That’s why Congress should make two massive changes to federal veterans programs. First, it should radically expand the current allowance for veterans to receive care from non-VA doctors or facilities…. [To read more about that reform, and to see what the other major reform should be, follow this link.]
