Almost 2 Million U.S. Vets Lack Health ...( According to the U.S. Department of V...),Health

According to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Web site, the financial income threshold is $27,790 for a veteran with no dependents and the range graduates upward to $38,948 for four dependents. Each additional dependent raises the annual income ceiling $1,866.

In the study, Woolhandler and her colleagues analyzed data from U.S. government surveys from 1988 and 2005. Veterans were classified as uninsured if they didn't have health insurance or receive care at Veterans Health Administration hospitals or clinics.

A preliminary review of 2006 data shows little change in the number of uninsured veterans since 2004, Woolhandler noted.

Woolhandler's team found that 645, 628 uninsured veterans were old enough to have served in Vietnam. More than 1 million (1,105,891) served at other times, including in Iraq and the first Gulf War -- 56.5 percent were older than 44.

Among uninsured veterans, 26.5 percent said they couldn't get medical care because of costs, 31.2 percent delayed care due to costs, and 49.1 percent hadn't seen a doctor within the past year. In addition, two-thirds didn't receive preventive care. Yet, almost two-thirds were employed, the researchers found.

Others reasons veterans can't get VA care include waiting lists at VA hospitals, high co-payments for VA specialty care and a lack of a VA facility in their community, the researchers noted.

"Veterans deserve a right to health care," Woolhandler said. "We think that every American deserves a right to health care."

One expert thinks that the uninsured veterans are in no worse shape than the rest of the uninsured population.

"I don't think the VA was ever supposed to be a health insurance program for all veterans," said Greg Scandlen, the founder of Consumers for Health Care Choices. "I don't think the VA is doing something it's not supposed to do."

"Veterans face the same problems as everyone else," Scand
'/>"/>