EDITORIALS
Keep the promise
Obama should abandon woeful idea that could penalize veterans
Among the shames America thought it was ridding itself of with the passing of the last administration was the shameful treatment of U. S. war veterans.
It may yet happen. But a national sense of relief will have to wait until a dreadful idea hatched in the White House has been firmly squashed.
The disgraceful levels of care and horrendous amounts of red tape presented to those returning from the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush years were, we allowed ourselves to hope, about to be swept away. The new Obama administration and new Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki—the general who told the truth about how many troops would be necessary to hold Baghdad— would see to it.
But Monday, just as President Obama sought to portray himself as a friend of the veteran and bearer of $25 billion in increased VA funding, it burbled out that the budget balancers at the Office of Management and Budget were pushing an idea to bill the private insurance policies held by veterans for the care they receive for service-related injuries and illnesses.
Nobody had the gall to propose sending the veterans or their families a bill for surgery, rehab or artificial legs. But Obama himself was said to be attached to an idea to bill the veterans’ private insurance plans for some or all of those services, attached enough that he stuck by the idea even when confronted by angry leaders of veterans groups at the White House.
Whether he now quickly backs down or not, this is a bad idea and a promise broken.
As Obama is well aware—or seems to be whenever he rightly attacks the unacceptable state of health insurance coverage in the United States—private health insurance plans are hardly paragons of care.
Even if veterans aren’t expected to come up with any copays or other out-of-pocket expenses for their service-related needs, charging any of those considerable costs to the insurance plans they buy themselves or get through their post-military employment stands to quickly eat up whatever coverage limits they may have. That could mean that they, and their dependents, would have little or no coverage for their next, non-military, medical bill.
It could also make it much more expensive, if not impossible, for veterans and their families to find an employer who would hire them or an insurance company that would cover them, for fear of future exposure to high costs. Even vets who aren’t already receiving treatment may present themselves later for maladies ranging from post-traumatic stress to hidden reactions to battlefield chemicals (see “Gulf War Syndrome”).
Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat who sits on the Veterans Affairs Committee, was among those proclaiming the Obama veterans insurance proposal “dead on arrival.” And there seems little doubt that it is just that.
Obama, or someone in his employ, may well want to remind everyone that America’s general, non-veteran system of health insurance reeks of high cost and low satisfaction. But threatening to dump U. S. military veterans into that maw is no way to do that.
This idea needs to be firmly repudiated by the president himself. At least until we have a universal health insurance system that can handle whomever we send its way.
Log into MyBuffalo to post a comment
MyBuffalo is the new social network from Buffalo.com. Your MyBuffalo account lets you comment on and rate stories at buffalonews.com. You can also head over to mybuffalo.com to share your blog posts, stories, photos, and videos with the community. Join now or learn more.
Reader comments
Learn more about our moderation system.