Vet News: U.S. House Committee Kills Bush Plan to Increase Veterans' Fees

The House Appropriations Committee voted Monday to kill a Bush administration plan that would have imposed new fees on some "lower-priority" Veterans who seek access to Veterans’ hospitals and clinics.

The proposal, widely panned by members of both political parties, would have imposed a new $250 enrollment fee on wealthier Veterans seeking care for non-service-connected health problems at facilities run by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

The plan also called for increasing pharmacy co-payments for those selected Veterans from $7 to $15.

Both items were included in President Bush’s 2004 budget request as cost-saving measures. But lawmakers made clear Monday they have no intention of placing an additional burden on any of the nation’s military Veterans.

Leading the charge to kill the plan, Virginia Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., R-Rocky Mount, won passage of an amendment that eliminates the need for new and higher fees by cutting $264 million from the department’s administrative expenses.

Goode, a wiry, normally soft-spoken lawmaker from south-central Virginia, rose to his feet and, in a booming voice, decried the proposal as unpatriotic and grossly unfair to many deserving Veterans.

"I want them to have treatment at the VA and not sock ‘em with an added fee," said Goode.

Recounting the critical role of Veterans in protecting the country during World War II, Goode said, "Let’s stand up for the red, white and blue and adopt this amendment."

Democrats likewise sought to kill the proposed fees, but differed on how to make up for the lost revenue.

Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, offered an alternative amendment that would have paid for the fee elimination by reducing the size of an already approved tax cut. The tax cut on those making more than $1 million would have been trimmed by 1.5 percent.

Edwards questioned whether the Department of Veterans Affairs could absorb an administrative cut of $264 million, as Goode proposed, without jeopardizing benefits to Veterans.

When Goode said the cut would come in legal fees and office supplies, Edwards sounded skeptical.

"Do we have that many paper clips?" he asked.

But the Republican-controlled committee refused to consider any reduction in Bush’s tax cut, and rejected Edwards’ amendment on a party-line vote of 31-25.

In earlier congressional testimony, Anthony J. Principi, the secretary of Veterans affairs, said the higher fees were needed to rein in soaring health costs and provide better service to those most in need of care: disabled and lower-income Veterans.

Most other Veterans, he said, have other health insurance and are not dependent on VA care.

The department ranks all Veterans in eight different categories, depending on levels of disability, health and income. The enrollment fee and higher co-payments for prescription drugs would have affected Veterans in categories 7 and 8.

Although the nation’s Veterans population has been declining, demand for VA health care has soared since a 1996 law that opened VA hospitals and clinics to all Veterans, instead of just the severely disabled. Over the last six years, the VA patient caseload has grown by 54 percent, Principi told Congress in February.

The issue is particularly important in Hampton Roads, which has one of the nation’s highest concentrations of Veterans. The city of Hampton, in fact, boasts the highest concentration of Veterans in the country, with nearly three out of 10 residents having once served in uniform, according to the Census Bureau.

In Hampton Roads, a single veteran making more than $30,150 a year who does not have service-connected health problems would have been subjected to the higher fees in the Bush plan, according to a calculation made by the department in February.

But if Monday’s vote is any indication, the plan stands virtually no chance of getting enacted. After Edwards’ proposal was defeated, Goode’s amendment was approved on an overwhelming voice vote.

The $90 billion spending bill, which also funds the Department of Housing and Urban Development, NASA and other agencies, could go to the full House as early as this week