After 10 years of war and expanded benefits for those who fought, veterans groups now are girding to battle against takeaways, as Congress considers sweeping budget cuts over the next four months.
A congressional “super committee” created by the Aug. 2 debt-ceiling legislation has until Thanksgiving to recommend ways to trim $1.2 trillion from the federal budget over a decade.
Veterans groups warn that health care and disability benefits are particularly vulnerable.
“I think health care is on everyone’s radar screen. That’s probably my biggest concern. That they are going to try to find ways to cut that funding,” said Joseph Violante, national legislative director for the Disabled American Veterans.
“Our point is that the sacrifices already made by those who serve are so much greater than the average citizen. We should come to them last.”
Veterans groups see these things as possible:
• The introduction of $500 annual enrollment fees or increased co-payments for 1.3 million veterans in the VA medical system who don’t have a military-related injury. Advocates say these patients support the larger system through the co-payments that they provide and funds that the VA recoups from their private insurance plans. The VA also could bar them from the health care system altogether.
• Changing how annual cost-of-living increases are calculated. The American Legion estimates this move would lop .25 percent a year off a veteran’s disability checks. The government’s saving over 10 years would be $140 billion.
• Taxing disability checks. Or, cutting disability pay for those whose income is too high.
The VFW’s longer, 10-item list is partly based on the “Back in Black” austerity proposal that Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma released in July.
It called for increasing Tricare fees and consolidating taxpayer-supported grocery and retail stores that offer below-market prices to troops and military retirees. It also suggested ending tuition reimbursement for troops and closing Defense Department public schools on U.S. bases.
Coburn’s plan didn’t gain traction in Congress, nor did his later proposal to limit VA “presumptives,” which allow the VA to presume that some disabilities were caused by acknowledged health threats, such as Agent Orange during the Vietnam War. Without those, veterans would have a harder time proving their medical problems were caused by military service.
Still, the VFW’s legislative director said Coburn’s ideas live on in Washington, D.C.
“Every piece of that is still up for grabs,” Kelley said.
The Source
Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and ranking member Richard Burr (R-N.C.) sent a letter to Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki on Thursday requesting the agency's budget projections for fiscal 2012 and asking for assurances that they can deliver the needed level of healthcare. 
