Amendment to boost veterans' health care rejected by legislators
The Senate on Tuesday rejected an amendment offered by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., that would have boosted money for veterans' health care by $2 billion, money the senator said was urgently needed to ensure soldiers returning from the Iraqi war receive the medical care they need.
"Part of the cost of the war is caring for the men and women when they return," she said on the Senate floor. "There is a train wreck coming in veterans' health care, and I'm offering an amendment to deal with the emergency now -- before it turns into a crisis."
More than 240,000 servicemen and women have left the military since the Iraq war began, and more than 50,000 of those already have applied for Veterans Administration benefits at a time when VA medical services are overextended, Murray said.
The votes were virtually party line with only one Republican, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, supporting Murray.
Murray said she tried to convince Republicans to support her amendment but was told they had "received their marching orders" from the GOP leadership.
This is a REAL crisis in the making, not a phony one like Bush's Social Security "crisis." But the right-wingers apparently don't give a crap about providing health care for the folks they claim to support, and whom they have sent to get shot at. It's so much easier when your "support" consists entirely of sitting on your ass and yelling "rah, rah." God forbid that it should cost you anything.
Give us our pork; screw the vets.
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