Viva the VA.

"Veterans Defend VA Care" was the headline over a recent article by Kate Long in my hometown paper, the Charleston Gazette. "You couldn't be treated any better than they treat you here," a local veteran told Long, describing the treatment of patients at the Charleston Veterans Health Administration Clinic. Another veteran said: "They treat you with respect. You got a problem, they get onto it. Any test you need, you get it." The much larger veterans' hospital in nearby Huntington, West Virginia, where more specialized care is provided, received similar reviews.

Cynics might suggest that the

excellent care for West Virginians reflects the state's two senators, Robert C. Byrd, whose record for bringing home the bacon is unexcelled, and John D. Rockefeller IV, who happens to be a former chair of the veterans affairs committee.

But the fact is that veterans' hospitals nationally have been praised not only by this magazine ("The Best Care Anywhere," by Phillip Longman, January/ February 2005), but also by the New England Journal of Medicine, the Annals of Internal Medicine, and BusinessWeek, which said they provide "the best medical care in the U.S."

This doesn't mean, however, that there aren't problems, either present or looming. From the recent Bob Woodruff special on ABC, we know that VA hospitals weren't prepared for the influx of brain injuries caused by IEDs in Iraq. Furthermore, most World War II veterans are now in their eighties, the time when health problems multiply. Korean veterans will join them in just a jiffy. And not long ago, Congress extended the care responsibility for VA hospitals from only those with service-connected illnesses and disabilities to veterans with any health problems. Additional budget requests and congressional appropriations have not kept up with these increases.

Nor have they kept up with the need to respond to disability pension applications from returning Iraq War veterans. This problem, first identified by the Washington bureau of Knight Ridder (now McClatchy) in 2004, now causes lengthy delays in payments that are desperately needed by families of the seriously disabled. Finally, the present head of the VA, James Nicholson, a Bush appointee, is not impressive. When Bob Woodruff was trying to make the point that a large number of veterans are coming to the VA with previously undetected brain injuries, Nicholson replied, "A lot come in for dental problems."

All this demonstrates that important improvements are needed at the VA, but we should also be sure that we maintain the impressive strengths of its medical care and do nothing to reverse the progress that has been made.

Charles Peters is the founding editor of the Washington Monthly and the president of Understanding Government, a nonprofit dedicated to better government through better reporting.