U.S. vets seek fail-safe medical benefits

WASHINGTON, Aug. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. veterans' groups seeking fail-safe medical benefits say they want Congress to approve the Veterans Administration's annual budget a year in advance.

They say this would protect the VA from political wrangling that delays funding and forces the administration to freeze hiring, cut back services and extend waiting-room time to the point that some veterans simply go home, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

And while opponents have argued the proposal seems like special treatment, veterans say they deserve this.

"We believe unapologetically that veterans do deserve to be taken care of first," says Peter Dickinson, coordinator of a Disabled American Veterans advocacy campaign called Stand Up for Veterans, which supports the measure.

For several years, veterans groups have called for healthcare funding through the VA to be essentially automatic, as with Social Security or Medicare.

But U.S. lawmakers have fought this, saying they want to maintain oversight, the Monitor said.

As a result, veterans' groups now say they want healthcare funding to become an "advance appropriation," by which Congress approves the VA's budget a year ahead of time.