HAVRE, Mont. (NMB) – U.S. Senator Jon Tester (D), Chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, alongside Ranking Member Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), held a press call on Thursday morning to discuss the unveiling of legislation that would improve healthcare for toxic-exposed Veterans.
Titled Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act of 2022, the bill would provide proper health care and benefits to generations of Veterans who receive care from Veterans Affairs.
“It’s going to add a structure,” Tester said on the call. “So that the VA can deal with toxic exposures … Toxic exposure has been around since World War 1 with mustard gas, radiation in World War 2, of course, Agent Orange in the Vietnam War, and burn pits with this bill. So it adds a structure by which the VA can deal with toxic exposures moving forward so it won’t have to have an act of Congress. … The second thing it does is it adds capacity for the VA to deal with these toxic exposures, whether it’s in manpower, in staffing, record keeping, whatever it might be.”
Tester says the bill also adds 23 conditions that are phased in related to burn pit exposure to allow the VA to meet the needs of Veterans.
There are nearly 100,000 Veterans in Montana, and according to data from the VA, as many as two-thirds of them were likely exposed to toxic substances during their service.
