[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 22]
[House]
[Page 30592]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                         CELEBRATE VETERANS DAY

  (Mr. ISRAEL asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ISRAEL. Madam Speaker, there is bad news and good news this 
Veterans Day. The bad news is the study by Harvard Medical School that 
there are 2 million veterans who don't have health insurance and are 
not eligible for veterans care, 2 million veterans. What makes it worse 
is that President Bush is banning 273,000 veterans from receiving VA 
care because they are not income eligible. So he is balancing the 
budget on the backs of middle-class and working veterans.
  The good news is that this Democratic majority passed the largest 
increase in VA health care in the 77-year history of the VA. We are 
going to add 1,800 new claims processors to make the long lines a 
little shorter and the wait shorter as well.
  Now, we have to go even further. I'm urging my colleagues to sign a 
letter that I've sent to the President demanding that he reverse the 
policy of denying health care to 273,000 veterans and not means-test 
them. We didn't means-test when we asked them to fight our battles. We 
should not means-test them when they have to come home for health care.

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