No matter what or how many issues the country chooses to ignore as they have in the past and wars from, i.e. PTS for decades {some making comfortable livings denying it existed with our politicians supporting that}, Agent Orange for decades {same as written for PTS}, Gulf War Syndrome for now decades are but a very tiny few of so so many issues. Finally being taken on by the present Veterans Administration and Executive branch with it's other cabinet agencies helping! And who gets blamed, the Veterans Administration, not the people through their government representatives who write the budgets and oversea the needs to further fund!
Finally Home, Traumatically Injured Vets Face New Lives As VA Faces Costs
Oct 17, 2013 - Jerral Hancock wakes up every night in Lancaster, Calif., around 1 a.m. dreaming he is trapped in a burning tank. He opens his eyes, but he can't move, he can't get out of bed and he can't get a drink of water.
Hancock, 27, joined the Army in 2004 and went to Iraq, where he drove a tank. On Memorial Day 2007 -- one month after the birth of his second child -- Hancock drove over an IED. Just 21, he lost his arm and the use of both legs, and now suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. The Department of Veterans Affairs pays him $10,000 every month for his disability, his caretakers, health care, medications and equipment for his new life.
No government agency has calculated fully the lifetime cost of health care for the large number of post-9/11 veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with life-lasting wounds. But it is certain to be high, with the veterans' higher survival rates, longer tours of duty and multiple injuries, plus the anticipated cost to the VA of reducing the wait times for medical appointments and reaching veterans in rural areas.
"Medical costs peak decades later," said Linda Bilmes, a professor in the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and coauthor of "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict"... read more>>>
In the budget conferences who will be the one or ones that face the realities of the past decades plus, still continuing, especially the first some six years of and the other issues placed on the countries credit card, that aren't the wars that were off the books and with no bid private contractor contracts. Never to be paid but plenty of wealth made from?
Cost of Iraq and Afghanistan estimated $4 to $6 trillion
VA caseloads farther backlogged due to shutdown
October 18 2013 - The Department of Veterans Affairs is working quickly to resume normal operations now that the government shutdown is over.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki says benefits checks due on November 1 will be paid on time. But some veterans are still nervous about what the future may hold.
The shutdown has been tough on veterans who have benefits and on those applying for them. The VA was already way behind on processing claims and now it has even more work to catch up on.
Mandatory overtime for workers processing those huge piles of claims stopped when the shut down began on October 1. That meant 1,400 fewer disability claims were processed each day. The number of pending claims now stands at around 725,000 so processors who are going back to clocking long hours have their work cut out for them. read more>>>
And you can bet that Rep. Miller, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, along with the rest of the republicans on the house committee, same for the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, will continue not only blaming the VA personal but attacking them in hearings they've called but have no intention of doing their jobs and helping the agency. Those they represent like it that way as many, including veterans, do same!
"If military action is worth our troops' blood, it should be worth our treasure, too" "not just in the abstract, but in the form of a specific ante by every American." -Andrew Rosenthal 10 Feb. 2013
"12 years also is a long time. We now have a lifetime responsibility to a generation of service members, veterans and their families." Dr. Jonathan Woodson 11 Sep. 2013: With 9/11 Came Lifetime Responsibility