Queens Vets Face Hospital Benefit Cuts

Rising war costs, Hurricane Katrina and proposed Congressional tax cuts may result in a reduction of hospital care benefits for thousands of veterans living in New York City, warned Democratic Congressman Joseph Crowley.
More than 90,000 veterans of the armed forces live in Queens, which has the largest concentration of veterans in New York City.
Documents released by Crowley predicted that a proposed Congressional five percent cut in Veterans Administration funding could result in nearly 15,000 New York veterans losing their health care benefits under the current fiscal budget. In addition, local veterans face closure of a veteran’s hospital.
The money “cut” from veterans’ benefits will be used to fund Hurricane Katrina relief projects.
Last month the American Legion expressed concern that these cuts will mean “?ationing of care, hiring freezes of medical personnel, delaying repair of facilities, growing backlogs of medical equipment, and many other fiscal-based constraints.”
A deeply concerned Democratic State Senator Toby Stavisky said that President Bush was sending our military all over the world. “When they return,” she declared, “they will face reduced veterans’ benefits. As the number of returning veterans from Afghanistan, Korea and Iraq grows, the President’s proposal to reduce veterans’ health care benefits is unconscionable and unacceptable, and just plain wrong.”
She predicted that New York State funding would have to be spent to care for the indigent veterans.
Contributing to this problem said John Ronan, Vice President of the Vietnam Veterans of America, are the increasingly large number of veterans developing service-connected illnesses in more recent wars. A large amount of Vietnam war veterans developed cancerous ailments because of exposure to Agent Orange, and a high number of Persian Gulf war veterans developed a neurological illness known as “Gulf War Syndrome.”