Over 17 million veterans voted in the 2004 presidential election. If you include the 37 million dependents (spouses and dependent children) of living veterans and survivors of deceased veterans, this constituency block jumps to over 61 million, or over 20 percent of the US population.  With such large numbers, why does it seem like veterans' issues have been lost in the campaign rhetoric?  And how are the candidates addressing this large group of potential voters and the organization that supports them?

OhMyGov! has provided the Cliff's notes to get its readers up to speed on the positions of the leading presidential candidates, as they pertain to vets.

All three candidates claim to be strong supporters of veteran's issues.  Barack Obama is the only candidate on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee (SVAC). John McCain, a veteran himself, maintains a lengthy record in the Senate of supporting bills to help veterans.  Hillary Clinton, though her legislative record is not as deep, still offers many initiatives honoring and supporting veterans' needs.

Barack Obama pledges to fully fund the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to ensure so the VA can meet the needs of the veterans it serves. He believes the current administration has consistently underfunded health care for veterans and wishes to rectify the situation.

Already the nation's largest integrated health system, he vows to make the VA a leader of national health care reform so that veterans get the best care possible to include the expansion of centers of excellence and investments in specialty care.

Senator Obama has cosponsored measures that would provide additional funding increases for veterans. He reintroduced the Lane Evans Veterans Health and Benefits Improvement Act to improve the VA's planning process to avoid budget shortfalls in the future and has been a leader in fighting homelessness among veterans.

He authored the Sheltering All Veterans Everywhere Act (SAVE Act) to strengthen and expand federal homeless veteran programs that serve over 100,000 homeless veterans annually. As part of the SAVE Act, Senator Obama reintroduced legislation that would help veteran's transition from the DOD health system to the VA system by extending the window in which new veterans can get mental health care from two years to five years.

He also helped to pass legislation in December 2006 to provide comprehensive services and affordable housing options to veterans and passed an amendment to ensure that all service members returning from Iraq are properly screened for Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).

John McCain pledges to do everything in his power to ensure that those who serve today and those who have served in the past have access to the highest quality health care, mental health care, and rehabilitative care in the world no matter the cost. 

McCain believes the most important benefit we provide to veterans is health care.  He is currently working to maintain, enhance, and guarantee an adequate level of health care funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs by fighting to make VA health care an entitlement program instead of a discretionary budget item.  This would ensure the VA's health care budget was not subject to cuts as frequently.

Over the years, McCain has been an advocate for all those who serve and their families, improving veterans' health care, providing veterans with the benefits they have earned, easing their transition to civilian life, and honoring the fallen. He has supported numerous funding increases, initiatives to make the VA more efficient, and proposals to give higher pay to VA doctors in order to recruit and retain high quality physicians and dentists.

He has been a leading advocate in the Senate for disabled veterans throughout his entire career. He fought for nearly fifteen years - introducing numerous bills - to ensure that veterans with service-related disabilities can receive the retirement benefits that they have earned, as well as the disability compensation benefits that they are entitled to. He has also worked to ensure that veterans can have their disability claims processed in a timely manner, working with the VA to rectify its huge backlog of claims and providing additional resources for that purpose.

Over the past few years, McCain has successfully pushed for provisions to compensate disabled retired veterans for this disparity and cosponsored a measure to allow disabled veterans to be enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program - the same health insurance offered to Congressmen.

McCain has also been a staunch supporter of bills to help homeless veterans by providing them with counseling, independent living training, and residential treatment programs so that they can address and overcome ailments such as post-traumatic stress disorder and substance abuse that plague many homeless vets.

During the first Gulf War, McCain helped increase the death gratuity payment and double the soldier and veterans' group life insurance.  He has also been an outspoken advocated for the creation of a number of other veterans' memorials, including a memorial to honor disabled veterans and the National Native American Veterans' Memorial.

Hillary Clinton, like the other candidates, believes in providing affordable and quality health care for all veterans. As President, she states that she would ensure the VA is adequately funded and has the capacity to avoid backlogs and to handle greater enrollments. She wishes to move to electronic medical records to avoid paper losses and proposed providing coverage through her proposed universal health care plan, the American Health Choices Plan, to all veterans who choose not to use the VA system.

Clinton supports a process by which DOD and VA determine disability ratings to establish standardized and consistent disability benefits for veterans who served. A proponent of the health care needs, she recognizes the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have resulted in increasing numbers of service members returning with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and supports reforms to ensure vets and their families have the care and support they need to combat these complex injuries.

In an effort to show her support of veterans, Clinton introduced two resolutions to honor the service and sacrifice of veterans who have been awarded the Purple Heart, and additional resolutions to honor both the Cold War and Korean War veterans.

While all three candidates promise to support veterans via health care, fully funding the VA, and extending veteran benefits, little mention of improving operations at the VA passes through their lips or websites.  Questions remain unanswered.  How can the VA improve physical access to health care?  What new technologies can be employed to enhance efficiency and record keeping?  What partnerships can be forged with other health organizations to keep costs down at the VA while improving care quality?  How can VA hiring practices play a role in ensuring veterans find work after service?  Where is all the extra money for veteran programs coming from?  Is there a way for VA facilities to raise money for veteran programs through sales of unused properties or by providing services to non-veterans in communities where veteran numbers are lower?