We Owe Our Veterans Health Care

"In America, we don't have a health care system; we have an insurance marketplace."

By Eric Haas
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Last April, President Bush told members of American Legion Post 177 that "We owe the families and the soldiers the best health care possible."

That debt is still unpaid. According to a new report by Harvard Medical School researchers, published in the peer-reviewed American Journal of Public Health, millions of veterans and their family members have not been getting the medical care they need.

People assume that veterans automatically get health care from the Veterans Administration (VA). They don't. Despite their military service, the Bush administration requires most veterans to pay additional money for insurance in order to get care. But many veterans don't earn enough money to be able to buy health insurance. At the same time, they aren't poor enough under Bush administration guidelines to get VA care or to qualify for Medicaid. Abandoned, these veterans struggle alone to find health care. In the insurance marketplace, our veterans remain in harm's way - their service, and our debt, forgotten.

Why haven't we made good on our obligation? Our moral debt to our veterans, based on mutual need and shared responsibility, goes unpaid in the current health insurance system because it is based upon corporate self-interest. An insurance company's responsibility is to maximize profit, even when that means denying care to veterans. Clearly, our national moral responsibility is not the same as an insurance company's corporate fiduciary duty to maximize profits.

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