The Military Officers Association of America (MOAA) offered harsh words for a bill pending before the Senate that would address health-care issues of those veterans and their families who may have become sick while drinking contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, N.C., between 1957 and 1987. MOAA initially supported the bill, S. 277, now pending before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee. “But that was before the committee voted unanimously, without notice or hearing, to fund the care by eliminating the federal subsidy for military commissaries and directing the consolidation of all DoD commissaries and exchanges," MOAA wrote in an item on the organization’s Web site. The Senate VA committee’s action is wrong, MOAA contended, because the responsibility of funding commissaries and exchanges rests with the Senate Armed Services Committee. MOAA also accused the Veterans’ Affairs Committee of underhandedly passing the legislation without holding hearings, and noted that the measure’s success would be the death knell of the commissary and exchange benefits package.
