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VA faces $2.6-billion medical shortfall

By wire services
Published June 29, 2005

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration said Tuesday it had underestimated the number of service personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan seeking medical treatment from the Department of Veterans Affairs, and said the health care programs will be short at least $2.6-billion next year unless Congress approves additional funds.

Veterans Affairs budget documents projected 23,553 veterans would return this year from Iraq and Afghanistan and seek medical treatment. However, Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson told a Senate committee that the number has been revised upward to 103,000 for the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30. He said the original estimates were based on outdated assumptions from 2002.

Senate Republicans on Tuesday announced plans to pass emergency legislation Wednesday morning to add $1.5-billion to the fiscal 2005 appropriation.

WASHINGTON - A federal appeals court Tuesday upheld civil contempt of court findings against four journalists who refuse to reveal sources for stories about former nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee.

Lee has filed a lawsuit alleging government officials leaked information about him to reporters, violating the Privacy Act in pointing to him as a suspect in the possible theft of nuclear secrets for China.

A federal court did not abuse its discretion in finding the journalists in contempt for refusing to answer questions about their sources, the three appeals judges ruled.

The four reporters are H. Josef Hebert of the Associated Press, the New York Times' James Risen, Robert Drogin of the Los Angeles Times and Pierre Thomas, formerly of CNN and now of ABC. AP will ask the full nine-member appeals court in Washington, D.C., to review the case.

WASHINGTON - The Medicaid health insurance program for low-income and disabled people is overpaying for prescription drugs by hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars a year, according to three inspector general reports to be released today.

Government pricing formulas intended to keep prescription costs in check have had just the opposite effect, the reports found, resulting in payments that exceed the market prices for thousands of prescriptions.

Even when the government used generic drugs to save money, it paid far more for them than it had to. Just eliminating overpayment for generics could save as much as $1.2-billion a year, one of the reports estimated.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles E. Grassley, R-Iowa, said Tuesday that Medicaid could save $4-billion over five years by overhauling a drug payment formula based on published price lists - not going market rates.

The reports by the Health and Human Services inspector general's office were prepared for the committee. The Los Angeles Times obtained copies.

WASHINGTON - The latest case of mad cow disease has brought new talk of a national livestock tracking system, something the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee says the beef industry can create more quickly than the government.

The government is still trying to pinpoint the herd of the infected cow, a "downer" that could not walk and was at least 8 years old. The Agriculture Department, which confirmed the new case on Friday, is using DNA analysis because the cow's breed was mislabeled and its tissues got mixed with parts from other cows.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said a system to track the movements of the nation's 96-million cattle needs to be running "as soon as possible." The government's goal is to make a system mandatory by January 2009.

[Last modified June 29, 2005, 01:19:17]