The Cost of Veterans is Something to Ponder

by VNVets 

We played around with some numbers last week and came up with some figures that were quite surprising.

Assuming 100% disability from 1/2003-12/2009, for 10,000 Veterans, the lump sum would come to a little over $2.1 billion. That’s max. It will be far less than that because few of the claims will be 100% and not all the claims will cover that time span. If both bills pass, I doubt we are talking more than 5,000 Vets. Ongoing annual claims for 10,000 Vets at 100% will be more than 345 million starting in 2010. Again, that is a maximum figure. That is just pension payments. Medical coverage would at least double the figures. And this is only for Vietnam era Veterans.

Remember, those are very high estimates, far higher than will actually occur if the legislation is ever passed.  And the longer the legislation is delayed the more expensive it will be and the more difficult it will be to enact it.

The Senate stimulus bill is offering over $3 billion to the House Veterans Committee. Our legislation, both bills, could easily be covered by the Stimulus packages, and CERTAINLY would stimulate the economy.

Now here is the dilemma. You see the potential cost of some 5-10,000 Veterans — just a small segment of the total Veterans population receiving benefits currently.

Consider the cost if the DVA [actually, the US Taxpayers via the government] would be forced to pay everything it SHOULD pay to all Veterans who have a claim. Do you think we would ever go to war again?

Do you think, perhaps, that the powers that be may realize that, and act to prevent it?

VNVets

”It is a stain on this nation’s honor that the Department of Veterans Affairs has become a deadlier and more difficult adversary to the American veteran than any they have ever faced on a battlefield."– VNVets

"The concept that Agent Orange, and its effects, stopped dead in its tracks at the shoreline is simply too illogical, and too ludicrous to accept. What does that say about the Bush Administration and his Department of Veterans Affairs?"–VNVets

"With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan–to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations." –President Abraham Lincoln

"It follows than as certain as that night succeeds the day, that without a decisive naval force we can do nothing definitive, and with it, everything honorable and glorious."–President George Washington

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