Excerpt:

Lawyers for the Bush Administration are arguing that veterans have no legal right to medical care and the government isn’t responsible to provide care to returning veterans in a lawsuit in federal court.

The arguments, filed Wednesday in federal court in San Francisco, strike at the heart of a lawsuit filed on behalf of veterans that claims the health care system for returning troops provides little recourse when the government rejects their medical claims.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is making progress in increasing its staffing and screening veterans for combat-related stress, Justice Department lawyers said. But their central argument is that Congress left decisions about who should get health care, and what type of care, to the VA and not to veterans or the courts.

A federal law providing five years of care for veterans from the date of their discharge establishes “veterans’ eligibility for health care, but it does not create an entitlement to any particular medical service,” government lawyers said.

They said the law entitles veterans only to “medical care which the secretary (of Veterans Affairs) determines is needed, and only to the extent funds … are available.”

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