Legislation introduced on Thursday would fund veterans health care for two years at a time so the Veterans Affairs Department would not have to rely on the sluggish annual budget process for those appropriations.
“There’s only one thing more important than having the right resources in the Veterans Affairs Department, and that’s having them in a timely, predictable fashion,” said Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, who introduced the legislation in the House. His committee counterpart in the Senate, Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, introduced a similar bill. “Without that, you can’t hire, you can’t fill vacancies, you can’t purchase equipment. You essentially ration health care.”
Beginning in fiscal 2011, the bill would provide funds to VA health care programs for the current and subsequent fiscal years. Akaka said the budget process now is so slow that VA has received its appropriations in 19 of the last 22 years after the start of the annual fiscal year, which is Oct. 1.
“The largest health care system in the country — to which millions of wounded and indigent veterans turn to for care — does not know what funds it will receive, when it will be funded, or in reality, whether vital programs will receive funding at all,” Akaka said during a Thursday press conference.