Veterans Call for Stand-Alone Hospital in Denver: Colorado veterans and lawmakers joined the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) in calling on the Veterans Affairs Department to replace the aging veterans hospital in Denver with a stand-alone hospital, not a scaled-down version proposed by the VA. At a news conference held July 20 in Denver, Colorado lawmakers, veterans, and AFGE activists urged the VA to stick with its original plan to build a stand-alone hospital instead of sharing space and resources with the University of Colorado Hospital, which would tremendously lessen services for veterans, take away resources that should be dedicated to veterans, and eliminate blue collar jobs held largely by veterans, including disabled veterans placed in these jobs through rehabilitation programs.

The press conference was held in response to the VA's decision to revise its earlier plans after substantial delays and without adequately including Colorado lawmakers or other stakeholders in the planning process. The new plan has the VA leasing a tower for inpatient care from the University of Colorado and sharing a research facility with university staff. Veterans were upset at the scaled-down hospital which would offer fewer services and require veterans to obtain all their laboratory and radiology services through non-VA providers. The lawmakers said that the price tag wouldn't have gone up had it not been for the VA dragging its feet. AFGE pointed out that the constant delays are caused by the VA's increasing reliance on private hospitals to provide care for veterans, which sends the cost for caring for veterans up and undermines the VA's specialized services for veterans.

You can pretty much bet that the American Federation of Government Employees has a stake in this, otherwise they wouldn't have taken their mouth off Obama's cock long enough to make any noise about it.

Yep.

And they are in Obama's *cough cough* "pocket"

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/the-trail/2008/05/09/ap_obama_wins_afge_endorsement.html