Vets’ Groups Oppose Proposed VA Billing Plan

Leaders of 11 veterans’ service organizations joined together to oppose an Obama administration plan that would allow the Department of Veterans Affairs to augment the department’s ability to bill third-party insurers. Under the proposal, the VA could bill a veteran’s insurance company for treatment and care of a condition incurred during or as the result of honorable military service. "Such a consideration is wholly unacceptable and a total abrogation of our government’s moral and legal responsibility to the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our freedoms," the groups stated in a Feb. 27 open letter to President Obama. Presently, the VA can submit a bill to insurers for treatment of non-service connected maladies.