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Show American Legion Opposes Sections 01 Hoover Report as to Veterans I The Cedar City Post and Utah Department of the American Legion Le-gion Is opposed to a portion of the recommendations of the Hoover Hoo-ver Commission reorganization jilans as it effects Veterans affairs, af-fairs, according to Milt Jolley, commander of the local post. The State Department Executive Execu-tive committee has released a statement of the Legion's stand on the -matter, Mr. Jolley states, w hich is as follows: The American Legion emphasizes empha-sizes and believes in economy in government and will lend its best efforts to support proper proposals pro-posals to effect savings therein. The Legion commends the efforts ef-forts of the Hoover Commission to eliminate waste and duplication dupli-cation in governmental administration. adminis-tration. The American Legion strongly favors all but portions of four of the eighteen Hoover Commission recommendations. It is the position of the Legion that adoption of these four reports would not result In reduction of the costs of government as regards re-gards Veterans' affairs, but that it. on the contrary, would create more bureaus and bring unnecessary unneces-sary additional costs with no additional ad-ditional benefits to the veteran. The Legion does favor a number num-ber ol recommendations in the Hoover Reports concerning veterans vet-erans affairs. The Legion opposes report No. 2 dealing with personnel management man-agement because of changes in civil service regulations which would eliminate the Veterans favorable status in federal employment em-ployment preference. Since the Revolutionary War it has been federal policy to give preference to veterans both by act of Congress and executive order. or-der. In 1944 a veterans preference act was passed. At that time only 18 per cent of the total federal fed-eral employees were veterans. As a result, veterans employment employ-ment in government has increased increas-ed to 47 per cent of the 56 per cent of the total males in federal employment. The Civil Service law including veterans preference provisions is now administered by the Civil Service Commission. The. Hoover Reports would decentralize this to various departments and agencies, agen-cies, thereby Increasing the examining ex-amining boards from 695 to 2,068 at a greatly increased cost. The Legion opposes two of the six recommendations concerning veterans in Report No. 9. This report would create a Veterans Insurance Corporation. This would require increasing of present pres-ent rates on GI insurance to cover cov-er the costs of the extra hazards of war and administrative cosis now covered by government appropriation. ap-propriation. The Veterans' Administration as now constituted can handle insurance more efficiently than a new bureau because the VA has veterans records available. The Hoover Commission report would create duplication of records rec-ords and examination. A second portion of Report No. 9 would transfer the Home Loan Guarantee Agency to the Hous-Ing Hous-Ing and Home Finance Agency. The Legion is opposed to this not only because of the additional cost but because there would be much duplication of records readily read-ily available in the VA. Red tape would hamper the veteran in his efforts to obtain a home loan. The Legion is opposed to Report Re-port No. 14 which recommends the transferring of hospital con-structlon con-structlon to the Department of Interior even while at the same time condemning the Department of Interior for its operations. The Legion feels that the construction construc-tion of VA hospitals is so closely close-ly Integrated with the care of veterans that this should remain in the agency responsible for the administration of veterans bene-fits. bene-fits. The Legion is opposed to Report Re-port No. 16 which provides for combination of certain federal hospital, medical and public health functions under a united medical administration. To seperate the care of veterans vet-erans from one agency would be an expensive operation because medical examinations conducted by the VA are used for compensation compen-sation and pension purposes, Insurance In-surance purposes, ' education, housing and other veteran benefits. ben-efits. Opponents of the veterans hospital hos-pital care program forget that 5G per cent of all veterans hospitalized hos-pitalized for non-service connected connect-ed conditions are tubercular or mental patients. The VA can take care of them more adequately ade-quately and at less cost than this can be done adequately by any other means. This type of tatlent is cared for by taxpayers, as a rule, because of the long term treatment. The only group of veterans which has non-service connected connect-ed disabilities and could conceivably con-ceivably pay for hospitalization makes up but 8 per cent of the patient days in the hospital. This group of 8 per cent is drawing the fire. No reasonable person argues against hospitalization of the patient with service connection. connec-tion. In the final analysis, the Veterans Vet-erans Administration as one single sin-gle agency has been handling veterans benefits for 28 years. If the Hoover Commission reports outlined above are adopted it will require five agencies, including includ-ing the VA, to do the same work. Two of these agencies would be new, the United Medical Ad-ministration Ad-ministration and the Veterans Insurance In-surance Corporation. It is the studied and well-thought well-thought out opinion of the America Amer-ica ii Legion that these controversial controver-sial recommendations would create cre-ate more expense and inefficiency inefficien-cy of operation. They are not in the interests of economy, which is the basic purpose of an otherwise oth-erwise commendable series of reports from the Hoover Commission. |