Dodd Offers Plan To Improve Health Care For Veterans

Main Category: Public Health
Article Date: 09 Nov 2007 - 10:00 PDT

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Presidential candidate Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) on Wednesday at the Iowa Paralyzed Veterans of America hall in Des Moines announced a proposal to improve health care and disability benefits for veterans, the Des Moines Register reports. The proposal would mandate that determinations on disability benefits occur within 30 days and that payments begin no later than two weeks after the determination, according to Dodd. He said veterans on average must wait 177 days before they begin to receive disability payments.

In addition, the proposal would expand the Family and Medical Leave Act to allow more time for family members to care for sick or injured veterans. He said, "Far more needs to be done to address gaps in coverage. It's not enough to blame red tape." Dodd said that the proposal would cost $19 billion and that he would finance the plan with funds currently used to finance the Iraq war, which he has promised to end (Rossi, Des Moines Register, 11/7).

GOP in Position on Health Care
"Despite their shaky reputation when it comes to health care policy," Republicans "are positioned to make major strides in this debate -- but they just don't know it yet," Gary Andres, vice chair of research and policy for Dutko Worldwide, writes in a Washington Times opinion piece. Health care "policy ideas long championed by the GOP are popular with voters," he writes, adding, "Just ask" presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.). According to Andres, the "traditionally 'Democratic' elements of Mrs. Clinton's plan are less popular with voters than those she borrows from Republicans." He adds, "She names her initiative 'The American Health Choices Plan,'" focuses on "putting 'consumers in the driver's seat,' ... says health care is all about 'your choices,'" and "explicitly rejects the notion of 'government-run health care' or that the plan creates any new bureaucracy."

Andres writes, "Republicans and conservatives should realize their ideas garner strong popular support and that their unjustified diffidence on health care is politically debilitating," adding, "They need to package, market and communicate their policies before Mrs. Clinton cherry picks and takes credit for the most popular ones" (Andres, Washington Times, 11/8).

Related Broadcast Coverage
NPR's "All Things Considered" on Wednesday reported on efforts by Clinton to implement health care reform as first lady. According to NPR, health care reform served as the "biggest test for Hillary Clinton in the White House," and she made a "consequential decision -- not to compromise with any of the alternative proposals that would have provided less than universal coverage." Clinton during her presidential campaign has said that she has "learned some valuable lessons that have shaped how I approach health care reform today," such as the need to compromise. Whether voters accept her position on health care "may determine whether she becomes president," NPR reports.

The segment includes comments from Sally Bedell Smith, author of "For Love of Politics," a book about Clinton and her husband; Carl Bernstein, author of "A Woman in Charge," a biography of Clinton; NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert; David Gergen, a senior adviser during the Clinton administration; and Leon Panetta, White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration (Liasson, "All Things Considered," NPR, 11/7).

Audio of the segment is available online.

Reprinted with kind permission from http://www.kaisernetwork.org. You can view the entire Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report, search the archives, or sign up for email delivery at http://www.kaisernetwork.org/dailyreports/healthpolicy. The Kaiser Daily Health Policy Report is published for kaisernetwork.org, a free service of The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation© 2005 Advisory Board Company and Kaiser Family Foundation. All rights reserved.