Washington ? Veterans are waiting up to six months or more for medical care as a severely overburdened Veterans Affairs health system fails to keep pace with growing demand, a report to be presented today to Congress concludes.

An estimated 110,000 veterans are waiting for initial appointments for non-service-related medical problems at hundreds of VA centers around the United States, the VA said.

“Washington, D.C., operates on a mentality of statistics,” said American Legion national commander Ronald Conley, the report’s author. “We wanted to make everybody aware that these are not just numbers, but are actual, real people, and they’re sick, and they need to see a doctor, and they can’t wait.”

Conley is scheduled to testify today before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

The VA expects to see 4.7 million veterans in its hospitals and clinics this year, up more than 54 percent from 1996. The rising cost of private health insurance and prescription drugs have led more veterans to rely on VA medical care. About 7 million of the nation’s 25 million veterans, or 28 percent, are receiving VA medical benefits.

Dr. Robert Roswell, VA undersecretary for health, said he also attributed the influx of patients to new VA community clinics and improvements in the quality of care. The waiting list for appointments had been considerably longer, he added, with 315,000 veterans on it just last summer.

President Bush’s 2004 budget allots $27 billion for VA health care, an increase of 7.7 percent from last year, Roswell said. “We’re quite pleased with the support the president has shown,” he said, but the funds are still not enough to “keep pace with truly phenomenal growth.”

The American Legion’s Conley visited 60 VA medical facilities over 10 months, talking to hospital directors, doctors, nurses and patients to assess how well the system meets patient demand.