
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 11, 1990                   TAG: 9003112607
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                 LENGTH: Short

VETERANS' DEPARTMENT FACING TOUGH CHOICES

It's starting to sprinkle on the election-year parade that last March brought the nation's 27 million veterans more access to the White House.

Not that the marching and music will stop anytime soon.

The Bush administration's 1991 budget proposal asks for a record $31 billion for the Veterans Affairs Department, including an unheard of $12.3 billion for health programs.

VA Secretary Edward J. Derwinski has raised the hopes of the 3.1 million Vietnam War veterans by promising he will personally settle the Agent Orange question this spring.

But the same members of Congress who praised the budget have already begun tinkering with it and refused to go along with a review of the VA medical system that could mean closing hospitals or clinics. Veterans groups demanded $1.1 billion more and are attacking VA's effort to review the benefits system.

Derwinski must decide what to do about the 9 million or so World War II veterans who are getting older - and many of them sicker and poorer. Large numbers have moved south and west away from existing facilities in the East and Midwest.

He also must decide how much special attention to give to the nearly half-million Vietnam-era veterans who have continuing post-combat trauma or to countless others who say they have cancer or other ailments caused by exposure to Agent Orange.

by CNB