Congress takes step towards granting free health care to millions of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans

[douglas9]

The House of Representatives on Thursday passed a bill that would greatly expand healthcare coverage for military veterans exposed to toxic chemicals and other materials.

The Honor our PACT Act would grant new disability benefits to 23 illnesses that have been linked to battlefield pollutants, most notably smoke from so-called burn pits that gained such notoriety in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The bill passed the House with a 256-174 vote.

“For too long, Congress and VA have been slow to act on toxic exposure — but today, the House took a bipartisan vote to change that and finally make good on our promise to toxic-exposed veterans,” said Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), the bill’s sponsor and Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman on Thursday.

The vote came two days after President Joe Biden delivered his State of the Union speech, where he called upon Congress “to pass a law to make sure veterans devastated by toxic exposure in Iraq and Afghanistan finally get the benefits and the comprehensive health care they deserve.”

https://taskandpurpose.com/news/burn-pits-bill-afghanistan-iraq/

[douglas9]

1. House passes PACT Act with 174 Republicans voting against veterans exposed to toxic burn pits

On Thursday, March 3, 2022, the United States House of Representatives passed HR 3967, the Honoring our PACT Act of 2021. The bill was only expected to pass in the House because the Democratic Party holds the majority of seats. This is exactly how it played out as the final vote was 256-174, with just 34 Republicans voting over the whining criticisms from their fellow GOP members that this bill was too expensive. That’s a bit different from the 363-70 vote on the National Defense Authorization Act a couple of months ago, where only 19 Republicans were worried about budgets when they added $25 billion on top of the already increased defense budget bill proposed by President Biden.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi made this point in her remarks before the bill was passed, reminding the House GOP that “The budget costs of it are a cost of war. When we decide we need to engage and initiate in a military action, we should understand that the cost is not just in our defense budget, but also in our veterans budget when they come home.” In fact, Pelosi went on, “the cost of this bill is a fraction – if we're talking budget – of the cost of the Republican tax bill that they passed in 2017, which added $2 trillion to the national debt. I didn't hear anybody complaining about – on the other side of the aisle – about the impact that had on veterans and their concerns about the fiscal soundness of the United States.”


https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/3/3/2083727/-PACT-Act-passes-with-134-Republicans-voting-against-helping-veterans-exposed-to-toxic-burn-pits?pm_campaign=blog&pm_medium=rss&pm_source=main