Veterans fighting drug fee increases

Veterans fighting drug fee increases
By LEN MANIACE

The Bush Administration’s proposed changes to veterans benefits, including higher prescription drug co-payments, have some veterans concerned.

 At stake

The federal government wants to charge veterans more for benefits

Imposition of annual fee of $250 to obtain veteran health services

Increase in co-payment fee to $15 from $7 for a 30-day supply of a prescription drug

Jack Lotz spent three years in the Navy during the Korean War, most of it in the belly of a destroyer, tending ship boilers in a room where the temperature stayed well above 100 degrees….

It was hellish work, but the worst of it was cleaning the boilers squeezing into a space so tight that a sailor couldn’t always move his hand to wipe a piece of soot from his eye. The job called for skinny sailors, and Lotz, an amateur featherweight boxer before the war, fit that bill.

Lotz is retired now, the father of five grown children and nine grandchildren. Much of his time is spent on veterans’ issues and stretching a monthly budget of $1,855 in Social Security and pension payments to cover expenses for him and his wife, Mary.

These days the two duties have come together for Lotz. The 72-year-old Yonkers native belongs to a network of veterans’ groups battling a proposal by the Bush Administration to more than double prescription drug co-payments. The plan for the first time would also impose an annual enrollment fee before some veterans could tap government health benefits.

Veterans say the higher health fees don’t live up to the promises made to them by the nation when they entered the military. In everyday terms, they say the charges would be a financial burden for veterans who don’t qualify as poor, but are not quite comfortable.

“I try to get two weeks out of a tank of gas,” said Lotz, who relies on the VA health system to help him cover drug costs at a much lower expense than he would otherwise face. “I’ve four prescriptions for back pain, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. I had been up to eight.”

As proposed in February, monthly prescription drug charges for certain veterans would go up to $15 from the current $7. The fee was raised from $2 in 2002. The proposal also would impose a $250 annual charge before former military people could use health services run by the Veterans Administration.

The increased fees would affect more than two million veterans enrolled in the VA health system: those with minimal or no service-related injuries. More than one million of these veterans sought VA services out of a total of 5.2 million patients in all categories last year.

The increases are needed, Bush administration officials say, to focus government money on veterans most in need: those who have service-related injuries and those who are poor as well as to help control government spending during a time of war.

“Given the current fiscal environment, it is more important than ever that VA concentrate its resources, policies and strategies on those veterans identified by Congress as high priority,” said Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson during a Congressional hearing earlier his year, referring to disabled and poor veterans.

As for veterans who don’t fall in those categories, Nicholson said, “This budget asks these veterans to shoulder a small share of the cost so that we may adequately care for our high-priority veterans.”

The fate of the administration’s proposal is unclear; the Senate is on record opposing it, while the House supports only the annual fee increase. The enrollment fee could even rise beyond the $250 proposed by Veteran Affairs. House Veteran Affairs Chairman Steve Buyer, R-Indiana, has proposed different increases for different categories of veterans ranging up to $500 per year.

Although representatives for Veterans Affairs Committees in the House and Senate say an increase in pharmaceutical fees is unlikely, they acknowledge that drug co-payments can still go up.

“It is still on the table,” said House Veteran Affairs spokeswoman Brook Adams, explaining that the proposal will be resolved as part of a large budget agreement to be worked out by Congress.

As the Department of Veterans Affairs has shifted from a predominantly hospital-based system to one with extensive outpatient services, more low-priority veterans have used the system, especially retirees who don’t have any health insurance coverage for prescription drugs.

Rockland County’s Director of Veterans Services Jerry Donnellan said the fee increase was especially troubling because it would come on top of a January 2003 service cut that for the first time prevented the lowest-priority veterans from enrolling.

“If officials are willing to cut veterans’ benefits now when there is a war going on, think what they are going to do when the war is over and all the yellow ribbons come down,” Donnellan said.

Donnellan said he believed that Congress would not approve the increase in prescription fees because of opposition from veterans, but that the annual enrollment fee was a real possibility.

A $250 enrollment fee might be acceptable to veterans, Donnellan said, if the VA would be willing to reopen new enrollments for those lower-priority veterans who were shut out of the system.

Lotz, who worked as a truck driver, salesman, and later in life as a small-time actor in movies, television and commercials, said he especially worries about the effect the increased fees will have on current veterans and potential recruits.

The possibility of higher charges, Lotz said, seems like a betrayal of the veterans by the government.

“I wanted to go into the Navy. I volunteered to go when I was 17. I had my father sign me in,” Lotz said. “This sends a terrible message to the kids who may be thinking about going to the service.”