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Trump Signs Bipartisan Veterans Health Bill While Secretly Trying To End Funding For It
In late May 2018, the US Senate passed bipartisan - yes I said it, bipartisan - legislation to enhance the healthcare options for our Veterans.
The Senate on Wednesday [5/23/18] overwhelmingly approved legislation paving the way for a major overhaul of the Department of Veterans Affairs and the way veterans access health care in the private sector at government expense. The measure passed by a vote of 92-5.... The House passed the bill last week by an overwhelming margin of 347-70.
The bill combines seven different programs governing non-VA medical care, including the so-called Choice program, which was created in 2014 after veterans died waiting for appointments at the Phoenix VA. The legislation tasks VA leadership with creating rules for when veterans can go to private doctors instead of the VA. Criteria to be considered include wait times for VA appointments, quality of VA care and distance from a VA facility.
Trump signed the bill into law on June 6, 2018. However all is not as it appears. While Trump and his cronies say they love the bill, they are working to prevent it from being funded.
Trump is fighting a bipartisan plan to fund the much-touted expansion of veterans health care....
The VA Mission Act authorizes an expansion of veterans’ access to private health care, but the bill does not reserve federal money to pay for it. A group of powerful Senate committee chairmen from both parties.... advancing a separate measure for the new $50 billion law, saying this is the best way to ensure the new programs give veterans access to medical care.
But the White House has been lobbying Republicans to vote the plan down....
What they are saying is simple: it will cost money to help our Veterans so we shouldn't do it.
.... last year’s $1.5 trillion tax bill or immigration measures such as the border wall, Trump has signed off on legislation projected to massively increase the federal deficit. On others, such as the veterans bill and emergency legislation to support communities impacted by last year’s devastating hurricanes and the California wildfires, he has demanded offseting spending cuts
Oddly enough, I mean shocking in fact, leaders form both parties are working on funding for this bill and others. But even that doesn't matter to dictator-in-chief.
Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.), head of the Senate Appropriations Committee... is joined in his effort by the top Appropriations Committee Democrat, Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), as well as the leaders of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Chairman Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) and Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.). Their coalition reflects a renewed commitment in the Senate to completing spending bills on a bipartisan basis after years of budget dysfunction.
Trump is saying NO to spending money on Veterans. Period. “You shouldn’t have to ask Congress every year for money to take care of veterans,” said John Hoellwarth, communications director for AMVETS, one of the country’s major veterans groups.
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