WASHINGTON (Washington Insider Magazine) – A major increase of health care and disability coverage for the millions of military veterans who were exposed to toxic burn pits while fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq was passed by the House on Wednesday.
The proposal will shortly be sent to President Joe Biden for approval thanks to the vote of 342-88. According to NBC NEWS, the Senate will have to vote again on the measure due to a technical change the House made, but the fundamentals of the legislation are the same as the one that was overwhelmingly approved by senators last month.
There are two main parts to the law. The Department of Veterans Affairs will have more time to provide medical assistance to military veterans who served close to burn pits. Five years following their release will become ten years, extending their entitlement for VA treatment.
Furthermore, the law instructs the VA to assume that certain cancers and respiratory conditions were caused by exposure to burn pits, enabling veterans to receive disability benefits to make up for their harm without having to demonstrate that the condition was brought on by their service. The VA now rejects more than 70% of disability claims involving burn pit exposure because there is a lack of scientific research, supporting data, and information from the Defense Department.
House speaker Nancy Pelosi criticized the denial rate, saying, “Think of the injustice of that.”
The measure does not include compensating expenditure reductions or tax hikes to help pay for it, which is estimated to result in an increase in government spending of nearly $283 billion over ten years. More than $320 billion over 10 years was spent on an earlier version that the House adopted in March, although senators cut some of the expenses early on by rolling in some benefit expansions.
More House Republicans joined the party as a result of those reforms, including Rep. Mike Bost, the leading Republican on the veterans committee. According to him, the most recent version also ensures that the VA has enough employees to handle the increased demand.
However, many Republicans remained opposed. Republican legislators cast all 88 of the negative votes. The worries about hazardous exposure are valid, according to Texas Republican Representative Chip Roy, and they must be addressed.
Inclusion of high blood pressure on the list of conditions thought to have been triggered by exposure to Agent Orange would also help a lot of Vietnam War veterans. Veterans who fought in Guam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, and American Samoa would also be covered by the expanded Agent Orange presumptions.
