Administration pledges to bail out VA health care system

A last-minute promise by the Bush administration Thursday prevented the removal of nearly 400,000 veterans from the Department of Veterans Affairs health care rolls.

Each fiscal year VA Secretary Anthony Principi must decide who will be eligible to enroll in the department's health care system. This year, because of a $400 million deficit in the health system, Principi elected to bar new enrollments of veterans who did not have service-related health problems and who had annual incomes of more than $28,000 if married and $24,000 if single. The move, scheduled to go into effect on Dec. 1, would have affected some 320,000 veterans, according to VA officials.

But just moments before he was to share details of his plan with leaders of veterans organizations, Principi received a call from administration officials promising to provide the funds needed to keep VA's healthcare system viable, The Washington Post reported Friday.

The veterans targeted by Principi's now-defunct plan make up more than one-third of the nearly six million veterans who receive medical treatment through VA's health care system. Limiting new enrollments would have saved the system $142 million in fiscal 2002, according to a VA press release.

"Veterans benefits have been eroding over the years. [Veterans] serve their country and without service of the veterans, I'm not sure we would have a country," said Joseph Lipowski, National Commander of AMVETS, which represents more than 250,000 veterans.

AMVETS was pleased at the administration's move to keep the health care system open to all veterans, Lipowski said.

"We know the budget constraints that Tony Principi deals with and we certainly applaud the President for helping with this $400 million shortfall," said Lipowski. "Veterans deserve health care from the country that they serve, there should be no questions about it."