Vets slam VA’s private insurance idea - Army News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Army Times

Vets slam VA’s private insurance idea

Major veterans and military groups like the Obama administration’s proposed $4.9 billion increase in the Veterans Affairs Department budget for next year, but they don’t like some details, especially a proposal to raise money by billing veterans’ private health insurance for some of the cost of treating service-connected injuries, illnesses and disease.

The idea is not fully explained in the budget summary released by the White House on Feb. 26, but it appears to follow the concept of billing private insurance for government-provided health care to see whether some of the costs can be covered. Whether private insurers would pay anything would depend on their policies on serving as the second payer on medical expenses. Some insurance policies cover such costs and others do not.

Full details are not expected until late April, when the full 2010 budget is announced. But military and veterans’ groups didn’t wait for details before attacking the idea.

The national commander of Disabled American Veterans, Raymond Dempsey, called it “a betrayal of a sacred trust” that shifts some of the cost of treating service-connected disabilities to private insurance companies.

Glen Gardner Jr., national commander of Veterans of Foreign Wars, said his group “will work hard to defeat” the proposal. “Charging veterans for VA care they receive for service-connected disabilities and combat wounds is not how a grateful nation takes care of her warriors,” he said.

Gardner said such a policy could result in insurance companies charging more to provide health coverage for disabled veterans, and make it harder for disabled veterans to get and keep private insurance.

Although Gardner didn’t mention it, congressional aides said they also worry that businesses might be reluctant to hire a disabled veteran if some of the cost of treating a service-connected health problem has to be covered by the employer or the employer’s insurance company

Dempsey and Gardner represent two of the 11 veterans organizations that have complained to the White House, saying that they are willing to accept the idea that private health insurance can be billed to help pay costs for providing medical treatment for conditions not linked to military service, but stressing that they won’t sit still for anything beyond that.

“Such a consideration is wholly unacceptable and a total abrogation of our government’s moral and legal responsibility,” the 11 groups wrote in a Feb. 27 letter to President Barack Obama, administration officials and congressional leaders.

“There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veterans’ personal insurance for care that VA has a responsibility to provide,” the letter says. “While we understand the fiscal difficulties this country faces right now, placing the burden of those fiscal problems on the men and women who have already sacrificed a great deal for this country is unconscionable.”

Other groups signing the letter include AmVets, Blinded Veterans Association, Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Jewish War Veterans, Military Officers Association of America, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Paralyzed Veterans of America, and Vietnam Veterans of America.

The White House has not responded to the letter. Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki, who is scheduled to testify Tuesday before the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees about the 2010 budget, is expected to be asked by lawmakers to explain why VA thinks billing private insurance is a good idea.