• He announced a new VA budget of $112.8 billion, a 15.5-percent increase over the previous year. Among other things, the higher budget calls for hiring more staff, treating 122,000 more patients, and beginning the switch of patient records to an electronic system that can be accessed by all VA facilities. The increase will also pay for an uptick in education claims by veterans who are taking advantage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill, passed last year.
• The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act added another $1.4 billion to the VA budget, to be used toward improving services, including grant money to states to build extended care facilities for vets, and the hiring of 1,500 new claims processors to speed up delivery of benefits.
• The Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Initiative mandates that the DOD and VA work together to build a coordinated computer system that will provide accessible patient information from the day an individual enters military service throughout the rest of his/her life. This will remedy one of veterans' main complaints about the VA.
• In a related issue, the Obama administration is pushing for a measure that would let Congress approve VA money a year in advance, thus avoiding the delays for budget reasons that have plagued the agency.
• Just two weeks ago, the VA and DOD held a joint Mental Health Summit in Washington, designed to "harness the programs, resources and expertise of both departments to deal with the aftermath of the battlefield." The initiative will include removing the stigma many soldiers feel about admitting to PTSD symptoms, and, finally, treating PTSD and traumatic brain injuries more fully, rather than how it's been dealt with in the past, as something to be merely contained enough to keep it from causing major social (or political) problems.
• With more than 100,000 veterans going homeless on any given night, Obama proposes pilot programs with non-profits to specifically target vets' homelessness and its related problems. A more concrete plan is expected within a few months.
This list still leaves much to do, but it's nevertheless a good start by the Prez to follow through on promises he made to vets. So on Veterans Day, when the country is full of hurrahs and heart-tugging nods toward the flag, remember that we still need to do a lot more to meet our commitment to vets. You can thank vets in a way that could make an actual difference: Contact the White House and your representative or U.S. senators in Congress, and tell them to do more for veterans, including improving the care given at VA hospitals. Don't just support our soldiers when they're overseas; make sure they're not having to fight battles with government bureaucracy when they come home.