Issue Position: Veterans Benefits
Issue Position
Issue Position: Veterans Benefits
Veterans Benefits
America owes its veterans a great debt for the service they have provided to keep our nation safe. Included as part of this debt is honoring the federal government's commitment to provide the necessary funding for veterans' programs, especially healthcare services. Unfortunately, our government has failed on numerous occasions to provide veterans with the services they need and deserve. Senator Wyden has fought tirelessly in Congress to honor this commitment, voting for measures that would increase funding for veterans' programs and making a portion of Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) funding mandatory.
Wyden has consistently fought proposed new enrollment fees and higher drug co-pays for our veterans which would force the financial burden of keeping the VA health care system running onto veterans themselves. Wyden believes our government should live up to the promise to provide access to high quality, affordable health care for the brave men and women who have served our country, too many of whom must endure long waits for services or are simply unable to access care. In the 111th Congress, Senator Wyden will work with the Obama Administration and continue in his fight to provide the VA health care system with the funding it needs to give veterans the high quality health care they deserve.
In March of 2009, Wyden introduced the Post Deployment and Mobilization Respite Absence (PDMRA) Act which would close a loophole at the Department of Defense that denied nearly 20,000 service members the leave pay they were due because of paperwork. PDMRA is paid to service members who were deployed beyond normal rotation cycles in Iraq or Afghanistan so they could afford to take additional time to adjust to civilian life. PDRMA payments are also paid to retain members who have had to take part in long tours of duty. The Department of the Army instituted their policy six months after the Department of Defense began the program and any service members who left the Army during that six month window did not receive the proper leave pay. This legislation would reverse that and get our troops the payments they deserve.
Also in March, Wyden joined Sen. Evan Bayh (D-In.) and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) in introducing legislation to improve medical care for U.S. soldiers exposed to toxic chemicals during wartime. Modeled after the government's response to the Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War, the Health Care for Members of the Armed Forces Exposed to Chemical Hazards Act of 2009, would guarantee lifelong care at Veterans Administration (VA) medical facilities for service members who have been exposed to occupational and environmental hazards while deployed. IT would also allow them to have any future health issues that could be related to such exposed automatically considered to be connected, allowing the service member to qualify for service-related treatment and possible disability. The bill creates a registry that service members could sign on to when they learn of their exposure. Commanding officers would be required to pro-actively list anyone under their command on the registry as soon as they become aware of the exposure.
In order to keep the Department of Veterans Affairs from annually becoming a political bargaining chip, Wyden has also cosponsored Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act that will set the VA healthcare budget on a two year cycle to minimize the ability of politics to get in the way of the VA budget. Currently, VA's budget is subject to delay and uncertainty, hampering budget planning and threatening health care quality for wounded veterans. This bill will allow for forward funding of the VA to ensure veterans are never left without healthcare they need.
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