Faye's Core Issues
Caring for Our Returning Service members
and Their Families
More than 600,000 veterans from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other global hot spots, have been discharged. We must make sure the Veterans Administration has the resources it needs to treat their physical and emotional wounds and help them and their families readjust to home. We need to ensure that the Veterans Administration has the funding it needs.
One option would be linking veterans funding to military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As your member of Congress I will also support legislation to improve the transition between military healthcare and veterans’ healthcare, to enhance efforts to inform veterans about what benefits they are eligible for, and measures to simplify the different disability ratings systems in use by the Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs. There needs to be timely transfer of records between the military and VA.
It should be our priority to reduce the backlogs in unprocessed compensation and pension claims ( roughly 480,000), and deliver budgets that do more than tell all those waiting veterans to keep on waiting.
Making Sure Troops Get the Care and Training They Deserve
Tricare which is tied to Medicare reimbursements, will undergo cuts of 10 percent on July 1 and 5 percent on Jan. 1, 2009. And fewer physicians accept Tricare reimbursements, making it necessary for our military families to travel long distances for care. This abysmal treatment of our troops getting the promised benefits needs to be reversed.
As more soldiers return home from Iraq and Afghanistan, America must be prepared to help them cope with not only physical injuries, but also psychological wounds. We need to help our returning military personnel and veterans make a smooth transition to civilian life, by improving veterans’ access to mental health services.
Instead of sporting ribbons on our cars, and talking about supporting out troops, we need to work to develop and pass a GI bill for the 21st century. It would provide for a four year college education at any of the state colleges across the country, for those who have served a minimum of three years. The GI bill would also address the needs of the more than 300,000 veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan suffering TBI, PTSD, and other conditions that require a life time of care. It is not only our patriotic duty to provide this care, it is our moral duty at the most fundamental level. When our troops return from battle, we should welcome them with the promise of opportunity, not the threat of poverty.