VA'S RURAL-HEALTH PLAN ABANDONED

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

DATE: SATURDAY, February 22, 1992                   TAG: 9202220347
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: CHARLES M. HITE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium
VA'S RURAL-HEALTH PLAN ABANDONED
Faced with a groundswell of opposition in Congress, Veterans Affairs officials Friday killed a controversial rural health project at the Salem VA Medical Center.
The Salem project and another at a VA hospital in Tuskegee, Ala., had enraged veterans groups since they were announced late last year.
The veterans groups claimed the projects would allow some non-veterans to receive care and undermine the treatment of veterans.
Veterans Affairs Secretary Edward Derwinski decided to scuttle the pilot projects after the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of an amendment that would prohibit the VA from carrying them out.
"I decided, hell, I have a choice of getting rolled over or getting off the road," Derwinski told The Washington Post.
"Privately, everyone was saying, `A great idea, but this is an election year and we can't vote for it,' " the secretary said. He said a VA poll of members of House and Senate veterans committees showed "10-to-1" support for the project, but also "10 to 1, I can't vote for it."
The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Veterans had launched a massive lobbying campaign to kill the projects, charging that non-veterans have no right to be treated in the nation's 172 veterans hospitals.
"It's obvious by today's Senate action that Derwinski got the message that health care is a promise made to veterans that must be upheld," said Bob Bowen, commander of the Virginia American Legion.
"Veterans saw these projects as a foot in the door to degrade the level of health care to veterans. I could not be happier with the decision to stop them," Bowen said.
Salem medical center officials had defended their project as an effort to provide basic health services to veterans in remote communities who find it difficult or impossible to travel to Salem.
"Obviously we're disappointed," said Kathy Finnell, a special assistant to the chief of staff at the Salem center. "We were within two months of serving veterans in rural areas of Southwest Virginia. That's been our goal all along. This means we will have to look for other ways to serve these veterans."
The project would have paid three federally supported community health centers - in Carroll, Bland and Smyth counties - to target health care to veterans in those areas. Some specialists from the Salem center would have visited the clinics once a month to treat patients. Once they had seen all veterans, these specialists also could treat non-veterans.
Asked by The Washington Post who were the losers as a result of his decision, Derwinski first said there were none. Then, he added that "whoever is in my seat 10 years from now will be doing things like this if they want to keep 172 hospitals open."
"They just won't have the patient flow then," he said. "This was a great idea, just a little premature."
The Washington Post provided information for this story.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB