Mercury News joins Record, Times and Argus in supporting McNerney on Livermore VA

Four regional newspapers have now gone on record supporting Congressman Jerry McNerney's proposal to save the Livermore VA hospital by expanding its services to veterans suffering from post-traumatic disorder.

First, the Contra Costa Times took the lead. Then the Stockton Record went on the record. The Argus (of Fremont) chimed in with their support late last week.

And now the latest paper to get behind the Congressman's plan is the San Jose Mercury News, which serves readers in Morgan Hill and has the largest circulation in Northern California. The Merc laid out the case for why keeping the Livermore VA open is the right thing to do:

The open-ended nature of our two Middle East wars, not to mention the longer-term war on terror, means the VA must re-evaluate its needs for the next several decades, including a careful re-examination of the notion of closing Livermore's 115-acre VA hospital.

Four years ago, we concurred with the VA report urging the closure of seven VA hospitals, including Livermore, believing that unusually high costs of operating those facilities should be redirected into building more outpatient clinics throughout the region. We remain alarmed that a General Accounting Office report found the VA spends one out of every four dollars on maintaining and operating outdated medical buildings and grounds.

But the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have gone on far longer and produced far more casualties than expected. The influx of 420,000 PTSD patients will put servere strains on the VA system without a corresponding increase in budget, staff and facilities to meet injured veterans' needs.

The chorus of mainstream media opinion leadership is getting louder. So, when will Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson do the right thing? Stay tuned...