Cause and Effect on Vets Policy

While this Bush policy of trying to prevent veterans outreach may not have caused the full problem, it certainly contributes to it:

THEN:
On top of shortchanging veterans health care funding, the Bush administration in 2002 ordered VA officials "to cease efforts to enroll new patients into its health care system." The directive said it was "inappropriate" for local VA workers to attend health fairs, open house and community meetings in order to educate veterans about what they are eligible for and enroll them in health care programs.
- Source, VFW Magazine, 9/02

NOW:
"Hundreds of thousands of vets nationwide potentially are missing out on disability payments from the VA [that they are owed] - and the agency's efforts to find them have fallen far short. Knight Ridder analysis of the VA's own survey data puts the number of those veterans [not receiving benefits they are eligible for but don't know about] at about 572,000...officials with state and nonprofit veterans agencies say the federal government does little to find vets who left the military years or decades ago."
- Knight-Ridder, 7/1/04