President Barack Obama and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs met with a group of journalists recently to declare their promises to restore faith in the the VA System. Those declarations were thus;

To reach out to all Veterans and bring them into the system. Enrollment is open again for Priority 8 clients.

The electronic medical records system is to be installed at every facility

More resources dedicated to mental health

Veterans health benefits will not be reduced or impacted in any way by national health care reform. (note this is health care reform, not insurance reform).

Insure that veterans are not denied benefits because links have not yet been made to war-zone burn pits. Evidence is still coming in and no premature decision should be made, like the exposure to the atomic tests in the 1950’s. Agent Orange in Vietnam,( which is now known to have been utilized 2.4 times more often than was reported), or toxins in the 1991 Gulf War.

Boosting the VA funding is going to be a necessity for many years to come as the Iraq and Afghan vets rotate home for maybe the next 10 years. We know this will be the case, and this time around we can plan ahead instead of crimping the VA budget, just to go begging and then have the media shout that we are not taking care of our troops.
The bean counters are struggling with this, as we have never in the history of modern warfare had so many survivors who have lost limbs and mental faculties. As we provide a guardianship for the world this going to pester us for years to come