POINT/COUNTERPOINT: Is biggest plan best for VA?

COUNTERPOINT: Veterans deserve this long-promised hospital

By Ken Salazar and Ed Perlmutter

Published July 26, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

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An artist's rendering shows the proposed veterans hospital at the Fitzsimons medical campus in Aurora.

In 1865, standing on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol, Abraham Lincoln vowed to heal a nation torn by the Civil War and "to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan." Lincoln's pledge to honor and serve the veterans of his time, has, over the past century and a half, become our nation's vow to those who have answered the call of duty in all times and all wars.

Today, Americans' commitment to those who have served is as strong as ever, but with 1.6 million new veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the government's health care system for veterans is under strain and falling behind.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Denver, where the VA medical center, the largest in our state and which serves the entire Rocky Mountain region, is in dire need of replacement.

In 2004, the Department of Veterans Affairs, an independent commission tasked with reviewing the VA's infrastructure needs and Congress all agreed that Colorado's veterans deserve a new hospital of their own. Congress directed the VA to build it on the Fitzsimons medical complex in Aurora, and the VA promised to get it done.

Four years later, the VA has yet to turn one shovel of dirt.

Since former VA Secretary Anthony Principi first promised in 2004 to assemble an architectural plan for the hospital, the Colorado congressional delegation, local communities and Colorado's veterans have faced hurdle after hurdle.

In 2005, we worked with the new VA Secretary, Jim Nicholson, to get him caught up and the project back on track. In Congress, we worked to secure $168 million to get the project under way. We assisted in land negotiations to provide adequate space for the hospital. And we continue to work to ensure that the VA has the legislative authorities it needs to build it.

Each step, the VA told us, was moving us closer to completing the architectural design and bidding for the construction of a stand-alone hospital. By the end of last year, we were close . . . closer than we knew.

In December 2007, Secretary James Peake became the third head of the VA in four years. When he arrived, he found on his desk the $4 million architectural design for the stand-alone hospital, four years in the making. Neither we nor any of the veterans groups who worked so long and hard on the project had seen it. Peake examined the plan, decided that it cost too much and quietly put it in a drawer, without telling us or the public that the plan existed.

In April, Peake came to Congress with a different idea: Scale the project back and lease space from the University of Colorado, which is expanding its hospital on the same campus. Still not having seen the architectural design for the original, stand-alone hospital, we listened openly, asked what services veterans would receive and requested more details.

His idea would break from the VA's highly successful model of owning and operating the primary elements of its own health care system. With an urgent need for improved health care resources for veterans in Colorado and across the region, now is not the time to deploy an untested experiment. To do so would take us back to square one, risk further delays and may not deliver the services our veterans deserve.

We do appreciate Peake's pledge to continue to expand services in rural areas and other cities around the state, but the VA should stand by the plan for a stand-alone hospital at Fitzsimons that we helped develop over four years, and which we know meets the needs of Colorado's veterans. That plan is ready to go.

We agree that the architect's estimate of $1.1 billion is high. But, rather than reject it out of hand, the VA should first ask the architect to simplify the design. As one veteran put it, we are not looking for the VA to build the Taj Mahal, after all. Or why not ask contractors to see if they can come up with a lower bid? The recently completed 1.4-million- square-foot Children's Hospital in Denver, which is roughly the same size as the planned VA hospital, cost less than $500 million. There has to be a reasonable solution to this problem, and we want to work with the VA to find it.

This should not be complicated. It should not have taken four years.

As Colorado's veterans groups made clear last Sunday, when almost 200 shovel-carrying veterans joined us in downtown Denver, the next step for the VA should be as simple as President Lincoln's oath to our veterans was strong: Just build it.

Ken Salazar, D-Colo., is a U.S. senator and Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo., represents the 7th Congressional District.

• July 26, 2008

  8:29 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  Mike_In_Hartsel writes:

  Gee, election year self-serving tripe. Who would have guessed?

• July 27, 2008

  11:51 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  yaakovwatkins writes:

  froward69

  You would be more convincing if you didn't indulge in the childish game of making fun of McCain's name. I am not a McCain supporter, but your childishness lowers your credibility.

• July 27, 2008

  7:57 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  jay writes:

  yaakov, i don't see how acknowledging the fact that mccain's policies are the same as bush's can be viewed as childish.

  mcsame is named mcsame because he is more of the same and represents a third bush term.

  why does hearing that bother you so much?

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