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Burn Pit Bill finally has a good chance of passing
The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s top two ranking representatives have announced that a bipartisan agreement has been reached over the highly anticipated Honoring our PACT Act, also known as the Burn Pit Bill. If passed into law, millions of veterans suffering from conditions related to burn pit exposure will finally be eligible for the care that they are entitled to.
President Biden would not only call this a professional win, but a personal victory as well. Biden’s son, Beau, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, died from brain cancer in 2015. Biden believes that his cancer may have been related to burn pit exposure during his time deployed to Iraq.
Photo courtesy of Burn Pits 360
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Burn Pit Woes
Up to this point, the Veterans Administration has denied up to 72% of all burn pit related claims. If passed, the Burn Pit Bill would force the VA to assume that service members deployed to forward areas have been exposed to burn pits and assess all ailments from there, rather than forcing the service member to prove to the VA that they were exposed.
The bulk of the bill and much of its selling points is geared towards expanding resources and benefits to veterans exposed to burn pits during their time in service. Additionally, and equally important, the bill also mandates investment into the VA as a whole. Health care facilities, personnel, and systems would be fortified through meaningful investments of time and money.
Jon Stewart, who famously advocated for 9/11 first responders and victims, has been equally instrumental in raising awareness on this issue as well as lobbying our government to vote in favor of the bill.
Stewart said:
“We can’t wait any longer. This delay is unconscionable. The bottom line is our country exposed our own veterans to poison for years, and we knew about it, and we did not act with urgency and appropriateness, and therefore, we’ve lost men and women who served this country. They’ve died out of our inaction.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I'm standing with NY veterans suffering from illness caused by toxic burn pit exposure who need the health care and benefits provided by the Honoring Our PACT Act.<br><br>This Senate will vote on the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PACTAct?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PACTAct</a> to get our vets the quality health care they deserve. <a href="https://t.co/aXq2MgfHib">pic.twitter.com/aXq2MgfHib</a></p>— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1516504489758535687?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 19, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
According to Chuck Schumer, Senate Majority Leader, the Senate will reconvene on the matter after Memorial Day recess, the first week in June.
