Vets slam VA’s private insurance idea

[unhappycamper]

Vets slam VA’s private insurance idea
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Mar 9, 2009 17:37:23 EDT

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.


Rest of article at: http://armytimes.com/news/2009/03/military_va_privateinsurance_030909w/%2e