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Feb 16, 2004 John Kerry has been saying a lot lately about the President “shortchanging” veterans. Veterans must wait longer for health care while dealing with reduced pensions. While it may be true that we veterans are now in dire straights with our health care, it was not always that way. Prior to the Clinton administration, active duty and retired military personnel could be seen free of charge in any military medical facility in their proximity. When the Clinton administration determined to balance the federal budget, it determined that major cuts in the military services would go a long way in helping achieve that goal. All the branches of the military were cut almost exactly in half between 1988 and 1998. The cuts in the military over this period of ten years forced many base closures nationwide. The base closures included many closures of military medical facilities that were performing vital preventive medical health services to local veteran populations. The fewer and short-staffed veteran’s hospitals found themselves suddenly overwhelmed with larger client bases. Longer waits for appointments and services were assured. To further complicate the lives of active duty and veteran personnel, the Clinton administration stripped the services of their free-of-cost benefits and placed the services under the TRICARE system. That system required payroll deductions (sans: additional payroll taxes) for dental and health care while insisting that military and veteran personnel seek care from a list of TRICARE providers, before seeking assistance from downsized military medical facilities. The only individual who could receive free care would be the soldier. All other family members were required to pay co-pay or were only seen at installations on the “space available” basis. TRICARE is also regional, based on which regional HMO is willing to support it. I am personally signed up in Virginia. If I seek care in New Jersey I must pay full price to any provider then fill out several forms to request reimbursement from the Virginia provider. Unless the service was on an “emergency” basis, as determined by Virginia, I might not be reimbursed at all. Now, I do have an option to upgrade my TRICARE coverage. When I was on active duty, I had full personal and family protection for the minimal payroll deduction. To maintain that same coverage as a veteran with a family I have to pay three times the former annual cost. Mr. John Kerry was a member of the U.S. Senate during the entire ten-year period mentioned above. As a member of the Senate, he actually helped build this dilemma veterans face today. He permitted the military downsizing and the elimination of critical preventive care facilities. He then permitted active duty and veteran personnel to be stripped of their free services, forcing them to pay for what little care they could get from the remaining facilities. President Bush had nothing to do with the military downsizing policies of the democrat controlled White House of the 1990’s. We have to understand the idea of reduced pensions too. Any veteran entitled to a pension for 20 or 30 years of service has his pension reduced by any amount of disability pay he or she might qualify for under current policy. The pension itself is not reduced, because disability pay is not taxed. Therefore, a veteran receiving sixty percent disability is receiving his full pension with sixty percent of that tax-free. If John Kerry really cared about veterans he would 1) fight to enable any veteran with 60 percent or more disability to keep both his full pension and his full disability pay, 2) fight to end or reduce all taxation of military pensions, 3) fight to return free health services to all soldiers, veterans and their families; enabling them to receive care in any medical facility, anywhere in the world, free of charge, forever; ending the soulless profiteering of HMO’s and other health care businesses. It was under a demic-rat administration that soldiers became true second-class citizens of the U.S. I remember reading every year in the “Army Times” the countless articles coming out of Congress involving cuts in services, troop strength and promised pay increases. Clinton hated the military and took every opportunity to restrict it. When he did deploy troops it was always half-heartedly. He ran away in Somalia and only fought back with words against the tragedies of Kenya, Tanzania, Aden and New York City. Talk is cheap. He was saving all his cash to make the economy look good. Few people realized that at one point, the entire military was down to 130 cruise missiles and 39,000 ground soldiers. If China had decided it wanted Taiwan, or N. Korea had decided to invade the South, we would have been hard pressed to try to stop either scenario. That is, if the President would even have tried to actually fight with actual combat. No. John Kerry is trying to pander to a group of people he never spoke up for in the past. He allowed his party to take things away from veterans because, after all, he was a Senator, and he would never need the services of any veteran’s hospital. He could go to Walter Reed any time without appointment and receive royal treatment. He is being very disingenuous to the point of being an outright liar when he says it is President Bush who is “shortchanging” veterans. ------------ About the Author: Independent, Conservative, Christian. Married 29 years with 5 children raised and one grandson being raised. 30 year Army Veteran and published poet with www.poetry.com since Y2K. Email Michael John McCrae: michael.mccrae@us.army.mil Comment on this column in the forum. Tell a friend about this site! ------------ |
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