Veterans Affairs secretary Anthony Principi visited the James E. Van Zandt Medical Center and the Hollidaysburg Veterans home yesterday. Principi took time to answer questions from some of the residents of the home and veterans who came to hear the secretary.
\nPrincipi is promoting the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) program which is an analysis of the 163 Veterans hospitals and over 1,000 clinics, nursing homes and other health care facilities. The analysis will take 18 months and after the analysis, Principi will recommend changes in the Department to the President.
\nPrincipi was accompanied by congressman Bill Shuster for his visit to the area.
\nThe CARES program has uncovered one major cost problem.
\n\u201cThe General Accounting Office reported to me and Congress that the VA is wasting $1 million a day for heating and maintaining excess infrastructure that is not needed,\u201d said Principi. \u201cWe needed to make some decisions so that the $300 million that we are wasting to heat empty buildings could be used to better meet the Veterans needs.\u201d
\nPrincipi spoke of the changes in the Veterans Affairs health care facilities and how it is easier for Veterans to be treated.
\n\u201cWe are making the change from being a more hospital centered Health Care system to a more patient focused Health Care system,\u201d said Principi. \u201cWe have created over 600 outpatient clinics throughout the country, so Veterans don\u2019t have to drive as far, in some cases four, six even eight hours out west to a medical center. Now we have 30 outpatient clinics here in Pennsylvania that did not exits several years ago.\u201d
\nOver the 18 months of the analysis, Principi will look at all input that comes to him.
\n\u201cI promise you one thing, the process will be fair, the process will be pro-Veteran, the process will be objective and nothing will be done in secret,\u201d the Secretary said. \u201cI want to hear from the stakeholders. I want to hear from the Veterans, I want to hear from the communities, I want to hear from the Medical Schools. I want input from all these sources.\u201d
\nPrincipi took questions from the audience concerning Veterans issues.
\nThe first question concerned the raise in co-pay pharmaceuticals from two dollars to seven dollars.
\n\u201cI made that decision,\u201d said Principi. \u201cOur pharmacy budget has grown from $750 million a year to $3.5 billion a year. No that is just for ingredients not the management. We spend another $600 million to have pharmacists, equipment the consolidated mail out pharmacy programs. Our pharmacy budget is in the neighborhood of $4 to 4.5 billion per year. We\u2019re discretionary funded organization. I have to make it work. Congress allows us to keep those revenues from the seven dollar co-pay. It doesn\u2019t go into the Treasury. It doesn\u2019t go to Foreign Aid or corporate subsidies. Every penny we collect stays in Altoona, in Pittsburgh, in Philadelphia, in community based outpatient programs. That $600 million we collect off of 2.1 million outpatient visits a year will provide care for about 110,000 Veterans a year.\u201d
\nThe James E. Van Zandt Medical Center will not be cut or have any services reduced from this analysis.
\n\u201cClearly, the workload at this facility has grown rather dramatically,\u201d said Principi.
\nPrincipi will be touring Veterans facilities across the country over the next 18 months to get information from the communities and Veterans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Veterans Affairs secretary Anthony Principi visited the James E. Van Zandt Medical Center and the Hollidaysburg Veterans home yesterday. Principi took time to answer questions from some of the residents of the home and veterans who came to hear the secretary. Principi is promoting the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) program which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news-in-the-tyrone-pennsylvania-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tyronepa.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}