{"id":654,"date":"2011-08-02T18:27:29","date_gmt":"2011-08-02T22:27:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesteptoegroup.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2011-08-02T18:27:29","modified_gmt":"2011-08-02T22:27:29","slug":"cost-of-treating-veterans-will-rise-long-past-wars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thesteptoegroup.com\/?p=654","title":{"rendered":"Cost of Treating Veterans Will Rise Long Past Wars"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cost of Treating Veterans Will Rise Long Past Wars, 27 July 2010, NY Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

By: James Dao<\/p>\n

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Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America<\/p><\/div>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Though the withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan will save the nation billions of dollars a year, another cost of war is projected to continue rising for decades to come: caring for the veterans.<\/p>\n

By one measure, the cost of health care and disability compensation for veterans from those conflicts and all previous American wars ranks among the largest for the federal government \u2014 less than the military,\u00a0Social Security<\/a>\u00a0and health care programs including\u00a0Medicare<\/a>, but nearly the same as paying interest on the\u00a0national debt<\/a>, the Treasury Department says.<\/p>\n

Ending the current wars will not lower those veterans costs; indeed, they will rise ever more steeply for decades to come as the population of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan expands, ages and becomes more infirm. To date, more than 2.2 million troops have served in those wars.<\/p>\n

Studies show that the peak years for government health care and disability compensation costs for veterans from past wars came 30 to 40 years after those wars ended. For Vietnam, that peak has not been reached.<\/p>\n

In Washington, the partisan stalemate over cutting federal spending is now raising alarms among veterans groups and some lawmakers that the seemingly inexorable costs of veterans benefits will spur a backlash against those programs.<\/p>\n

Even if cuts to veterans programs do not occur, the current mood of budgetary constraint seems likely to force the Department of Veterans Affairs to make do without the large spending increases it has received from Congress in the recent past.<\/p>\n

That means efforts by veterans groups to expand existing health care programs, provide additional benefits to Vietnam veterans or institute new research into things liketraumatic brain injury<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0hearing loss<\/a>\u00a0will face difficult uphill battles, lawmakers and veterans advocates say.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one is thinking about the lifetime costs this country is responsible for,\u201d said Senator Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat who is chairwoman of the Senate Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee. \u201cI\u2019m really worried.\u201d<\/p>\n

FULL ARTICLE AT:\u00a0http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2011\/07\/28\/us\/28veterans.html?_r=2<\/a><\/p>\n

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