DiversityInc - October 2008

Obama

Obama particularly wants to improve assistance to recently returned veterans, and his goal is to provide better healthcare and mental-health assistance to all vets. According to his Blueprint, Obama would:

• Ensure a seamless transition. Obama wants to implement programs that make it easier for veterans to make the change to civilian life.

• Fully fund VA medical care. Obama says he’ll fully fund the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to ensure it has the resources to take care of veterans properly. He also wants to establish a planning division to properly budget for the VA each year.

• Allow all veterans back into the VA. In 2003, veterans with modest incomes were banned from receiving the benefits of the VA. Obama says one of his first acts as president will be to reverse this decision.

• Strengthen VA care. Obama says he’ll work to improve care for polytrauma vision impairment, prosthetics and spinal-cord injuries. He’ll also work to ensure improved care for older veterans and for women veterans.

• Improve mental-health treatment. Obama says he’ll work to improve mental-health care at every stage of military service by recruiting more mental-health professionals, improving the screening process, offering more family support and making post-traumatic-stress-disorder benefit claims fairer.

• Improve care for traumatic brain injury. Obama says he will establish standards of care for traumatic brain injury, the signature injury of the Iraq war.

• Expand vet centers. Obama says he will work to expand and strengthen vet centers to provide more counseling for vets and their families.

• Fix the benefits bureaucracy. Obama would support hiring additional claims workers and improve training and accountability so VA benefit decisions are rated fairly and consistently. He also wants make the paper benefit-claims process an electronic one to reduce errors and improve timeliness.

• Combat homelessness among our nation’s veterans. Obama says he will establish a national zero-tolerance policy for veterans falling into homelessness by expanding proven programs and launching services to prevent veterans from becoming homeless.

• Fight veterans’ employment discrimination, including a crackdown on employers who discriminate against guardsmen and reservists.

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McCain

McCain, himself a veteran of the Vietnam Offensive, offers a comprehensive plan to overhaul veterans’ affairs in America. More specifically, he would expand available and existing healthcare options.

According to his web site, McCain’s veterans’ plans include:

• Funding veterans’ healthcare. McCain has voted, over his career, “to ensure that the Veterans’ Affairs healthcare programs receive the funding necessary to serve our veterans. He has supported numerous funding increases, initiatives to make the VA more efficient, and proposals to give higher pay to VA doctors to recruit and retain high-quality physicians and dentists.”

• Expanding veterans’ access to healthcare. “McCain has worked to ensure that geography does not prevent veterans from receiving the care they have earned. He supported measures to allow veterans in remote areas of Alaska to get care at existing facilities run by the Indian Health Service or tribal organizations. He also rallied support for a demonstration project to send mobile health centers to remote locations where veterans need care. In addition, he sponsored legislation that would ensure that healthcare funding is distributed fairly, and that eligible veterans in all regions of the country can equally access high-quality healthcare.”

• Serving the special healthcare needs of veterans. McCain says he “understands that veterans face a broad array of health challenges, many of which disproportionately afflict our former service members. He has fought to ensure that veterans receive healthcare that reflects their unique needs.”

• Healthcare for retired veterans. “McCain believes that all military retirees, even if they are not eligible for VA healthcare, should be provided with meaningful access to healthcare. He has supported allowing military retirees to remain eligible for CHAMPUS or TRICARE military healthcare programs even when they reach the age of 65 and are eligible for Medicare. He has also supported efforts to give military retirees tax breaks to help pay health-insurance premiums, and he has opposed placing user fees on military retirees for using military medical facilities.”