Fayetteville Observer editorial

One person in eight who leaves military service goes from something close to full medical coverage to no guarantees at all. Way to repay a debt, America.

Blame poverty, always a likely suspect. Blame the rising cost of health care and the higher premiums that result. But don’t overlook the fact that more than half of the veterans with no health insurance are middle-income.

That means no Medicaid. With the exceptions of National Guard veterans and reservists, there’s no employer keeping civilian benefits secure. And because “means testing” of insurance provided through the Veterans Administration can make people who earn as little as $24,000 a year ineligible, there goes another big bunch.

Everybody understands that this nation has a health-insurance problem confronting it. But there are several angles from which to view it, and all of them merit attention.

With 47 million Americans lacking insurance, it’s important to avoid the suggestion that veterans are the only ones not getting a square deal. You don’t have to put a uniform on a premature, low-birthweight baby to understand that (A) it needs help and (B) society’s costs will rise faster if it doesn’t get that help than if it does.

Another angle, however, is that neither Congress nor the administration is about to take the plunge and try to solve the whole problem at once. Even if they had exact figures showing the cost of neglect as contrasted with the cost of timely treatment, either sticker shock or cries of “Socialized medicine!” would stop such an effort in its tracks.

What that leaves is doing what can be done for those groups it’s politically feasible to help.

Children, and most especially children of poor parents, surely make the short list of candidates for Washington’s attention.

The elderly? There are those callous enough to write them off as expendable — except that older Americans are, potentially, the biggest voting bloc in the country, and nothing is more likely to unite them than a threat to health care.

To bring the thing full circle, though, there is something that Congress can do right now to help that other deserving group, veterans.

Means testing need not be tossed out the window in order to give substantial numbers of veterans a better choice. But means testing has to mean something better than forcing veterans to choose between a decent standard of living and giving up half their yearly incomes to pay health-insurance premiums. Raise the earnings cap. And do it now.