Say it isn't so, VA hospitals!

Ty Ziegel (above), 25, was critically injured in Iraq by a suicide bomber. He was severely burned, lost part of his skull, half of his left arm, and most of the fingers from his remaining hand. He has a left lobe brain injury, is blind in his right eye, and suffered a jaw fracture.

He cannot work, yet despite the severity of his injuries and the fact that there is no question that they were incurred while he was on active duty, he had to fight the VA for benefits. In fact, the VA gave him only a little over half of what he should have been receiving. That is, until CNN ran his story and WWII Medal of Honor recipient Woody Williams stepped up to the plate to register his disgust with the way this young man has been treated. Within 48 hours, the VA had reviewed his case and granted him the benefits he should have gotten all along.

It is appalling that the media has to intervene to shame the Veterans Administration into doing the right thing, the thing they should have done in the first place - to properly care for our soldiers when they return home. Shame on the Veterans Administration. Shame on the Bush administration for overseeing what the VA should have been doing .

Asked to name one question she would like to pose to senior officials about the Walter Reed Scandal, Washington Post reporter Dana Priest said, “The root of so much that we cover is money. And the question is, why isn’t this funded to the extent that it needs to be funded?” Indeed, as Paul Krugman wrote in a recent New York Times article, the crisis in the veterans’ health system “starts with money“.

The quagmire in Iraq has vastly increased the demands on the Veterans Administration, yet since 2001 federal outlays for veterans’ medical care have actually lagged behind overall national health spending. To save money, the administration has been charging veterans for many formerly free services. For example, in 2005 Salon reported that some Walter Reed patients were forced to pay hundreds of dollars each month for their meals. More important, the administration has broken longstanding promises of lifetime health care to those who defend our nation. Two months before the invasion of Iraq the V.H.A., which previously offered care to all veterans, introduced severe new restrictions on who is entitled to enroll in its health care system. As the agency’s Web site helpfully explains, veterans whose income exceeds as little as $27,790 a year, and who lack “special eligibilities such as a compensable service connected condition or recent combat service,” will be turned away.

The administration’s approach to funding wounded veterans should already be clear. In 2005, the Wall Street Journal noted the growing cost of veterans benefits due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon’s response was to complain that it would “rather use [the funds] to help troops fighting today.” David Chu, the Pentagon's undersecretary for personnel and readiness, stated, “The amounts have gotten to the point where they are hurtful. They are taking away from the nation’s ability to defend itself."

During hearings of the House Oversight and Government Reform, Chairman Henry Waxman (D-CA) called Chu’s remark “offensive.” Staff Sgt. John Daniel Shannon, whose eye and skull were shattered by an AK-47 round in Iraq and who is waiting for prosthetic eye surgery, said Chu was “absolutely” inaccurate.

I have a relative whose first job out of college was the VA in Milwaukee. I remember him saying, "You don't ever wanna have to be admitted to the VA".

This was back in 1976. If you know me, than you know I'm as patriotic - no...above-patriotic - as the next guy. But this entire issue makes me wanna puke on our flag. I don't want to talk about it anymore.