Heard a 'teabagger' type Demand 'Sacrifice', today, yesterday? How about their talking heads? Or their representatives? Me neither!!
Do keep hearing about 'privatizing' the VA though, this after they rubber stamped these wars of choice, and the magnetic ribbons are long gone, and refuse to cut the ever increasingly bloated defense budgets! Also hear an awful lot about those job creating tax cuts?, especially for the wealthy, the grossly wealthy now!
Oct 8, 2010 - In a warning with big implications for future budget debates, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the cost of veterans health care will rise between 45 percent and 70 percent over the next decade, a massive jump that will only partly result from treating Iraq and Afghanistan combat veterans.
Veterans Affairs Department health care costs are now running about $48 billion a year, according to a new report from the nonpartisan congressional agency. About $2 billion of that total is associated with treating Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
Treating combat veterans is expected to cost between $5.4 billion and $8.3 billion by 2020, while the overall VA health care budget could rise to between $69 billion and $85 billion a year, according to the CBO report.
Snip
The report comes at a time when Congress is facing increasing pressure to hold down or even cut federal spending, and when lawmakers expect to face even more difficulty justifying extra money for veterans when other federal programs are facing dramatic cuts, according to House aides reviewing the numbers.
Aides who spoke on the condition of anonymity said they do not expect a head-on battle over veterans health care funding, especially when there are still U.S. troops in combat, but a likely result would be more careful attention paid to other areas of veterans spending, such as possible improvements in disability pay and education benefits that might get less support because of the bigger medical expenses. {read rest}
No comments:
Post a Comment