VA Sued Over Veteran Suicides

Veterans of America’s wars are committing suicide at record numbers, and now their advocates are taking the Feds to court. [BBC]

The BBC reports that “a San Francisco court will hear the class action lawsuit against the Department of Veteran Affairs.”

The plaintiff’s argument: The department’s “inadequate care” is “unable to deal with the growing incidence of depression and suicides.”

Evidence of the spiraling tragedy: An internal email among top VA officials provided to the court revealed that “18 war veterans kill themselves each day, and five of them are under VA care when they commit suicide.”

Says Gordon Erspamer, the lawyer for the veterans groups, “We find that the VA has simply not devoted enough resources … They don’t have enough psychiatrists.”

A recent RAND report found that “300,000 U.S. troops — about 20 percent of those deployed — are suffering from depression or post-traumatic stress from serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Bush’s record: From 2000 to 2004, the number of Vets without health insurance increased by 290,000, according to a 2007 report from the American Journal of Public Health, and 12.7 percent of all non-elderly vets lack health insurance. [Harvard Science]

Does that sound like supporting our troops?

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