Va Choice Program Out Of Money? Or Not?!?

[Notorious Kelly]

A week ago Fox News said "The VA said it wants authority to use up to $3 billion from the new Veterans Choice program to close the budget gap, with as much as $500 million going to treat hepatitis C."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/14/va-threatens-to-close-hospitals-to-shrink-25b-budget-gap/?intcmp=latestnews

Today they say "The $6 billion pot of money called “Non-VA Care,” where veterans could go for treatment outside the system, is now basically drained.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/07/23/lawmakers-scramble-to-fix-billion-dollar-shortfall-at-va-that-could-lead-to/?intcmp=latestnews

SO- which is it?

Are the Choice coffers empty or are they available to be re-allocated to keeping hospitals open?

[Navy04]

Thanks for the Info bud, and it is no Surprise that the Well is Never as Deep as the Govt Says!!!

[Chuck75]

It's actually "apples and oranges" or the "color" of money!

There are other "community care" programs besides "Choice". They are the ones "out of money".

Remember that the choice program is just now starting to get off the ground.

[Vync]

From what I read, the Choice Card program was temporary and it says it right on the card: "Veterans Choice Card Temporary Program". Don't quote me on this, but I recall reading somewhere that it was supposed to be funded only for either three or four years. It would not surprise me if the VA burned through that much funding way ahead of schedule...

[Chuck75]

I suspect what happened has to do with how slowly the Choice program became usable.

It is most obvious that the VA did (and does) not have the internal capability to do things

as they are needed. So, much maligned other outside care programs were used, and the inadequate funds for them exhausted.

Remember that they were often deliberately underplayed, in order to try to strengthen the VA's arguments about in house vs.

outside care.

The whole thing begs of an endless series of questions concerning

The relationships between money budgeted, required services by law and necessity,

and who/what is in charge. (The bean counters, or actual necessity and obligations required by law)

The idea to consolidate many of the various programs dealing with outside care is, on the surface,

a good one. Unfortunately, as is often the case, the devil is in the details. The VA's past record

is that the changes benefit the VA, and are often to the detriment of veterans.

[john999]

The VA Medical system is planned failure. When the VA starts to talk about changing benefits like this Veteran's Choice you better duck fast. There is a rational way to create a good veteran's health care system based on the Medicare model. That would mean about 900,000 VA employees would lose their jobs. All the welfare to hospitals, University medical programs, and political appointees would have to stop. Medicare has tiny administrative costs while I bet the VA spends billions just doing the paperwork. The VA spends mucho money to bill my insurance to capture a couple of dollars. The only time we get any increase in benefits is when there is a war going on somewhere. Let's hope Iran is busy making an Atom Bomb so we have a good excuse to send 500,000 troops back to the Middle East again. Now that Iraq and Afghanistan are off the front pages the population and congress has started to forget the vets already. Our benefits have only increased according to the CPI since WWII. That just means that your compensation has the same buying power it had in 1960. A 100% vet gets about $2900 a month. Multiply that by 12 and you are below the average median income by about $15,000. If you we were on welfare we could at least get food stamps and have a free pad in the projects.