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Friday, June 10, 2011

As VA struggles to deal with recent vets' health issues, audit shows rural efforts' impact uncertain

"Long distances and restrictive rules have become obstacles to health care for many of the more than 3 million rural veterans enrolled in the VA health system," David Goldstein of McClatchy Newspapers reports. "But the agency's effort to aid rural veterans has other problems as well. An April internal VA audit found that it couldn't determine whether a lot of the money spent on rural health care in recent years care did any good."

Rural vets account for 41 percent of VA enrollees, and more than a third of those who served in Irag and Afghanistan, Goldstein notes. "While there appears to be general agreement that VA hospitals provide good medical care, the system has been under extreme stress because of the wars" in thoose nations, which have lasted longer than expected and caused many phsical disabilities and metal illnesses. "suicides among Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have reached record levels," Goldstein writes.

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