Antiwar Group Calls For Increased Veterans Health Care Funding

Members of the Madison chapter of the antiwar group Veterans for Peace are joining other chapters across the country this week in calling for increased funding for veterans health care.

All of the veterans at a Madison news conference praised the care they’ve received from the Department of Veterans Affairs, but they called on Congress to boost VA health care spending by $50 billion by shifting money from health care administrators to doctors and nurses and by reducing spending on weapons.

Korean War veteran Buzz Davis of Stoughton said bills pending in Congress to solve the waiting list problems at some hospitals could lead to privatization of veterans’ health care.

“They’re setting the VA up for failure, so they will say that all these millions of people – there’s six million people scheduled for appointments in one day in the VA – so that mans that millions and millions of people will be asked to take a voucher and go somewhere else.”

VA hospitals are already sending some patients to private hospitals, according to Tim Donovan, the spokesman for the veterans hospital in Madison. He said his hospital has already hired a new primary care team and added a Saturday primary clinic that in now working overtime to handle a recent spike in the number of veterans seeking care.

“That does not even account for some capabilities we have always had and have been newly enhanced to provide access in the community when we are just not able to provide the care as timely as is it needs to be provided to a veteran,” said Donovan.

Veterans for Peace groups said this is a slippery slope that will eventually lead to privatization and lower quality health care for veterans. They’re lobbying Congress now to remove provisions in the VA bill that encourage contracting out health care.