Cost of Treating Veterans Will Rise Long Past Wars

[white cloud]

WASHINGTON — Though the withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan will save the nation billions of dollars a year, another cost of war is projected to continue rising for decades to come: caring for the veterans.


Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times
Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America

Related
Walter Reed Hospital Holds Closing Ceremony (July 28, 2011) By one measure, the cost of health care and disability compensation for veterans from those conflicts and all previous American wars ranks among the largest for the federal government — less than the military, Social Security and health care programs including Medicare, but nearly the same as paying interest on the national debt, the Treasury Department says.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/us/28veterans.html?_r=1&emc=tnt&tntemail1=y

[aquart]

1. Yes. It would be cheaper not to get our people blown up.

[KT2000]

2. But thoses cost do not

come out of the Defense budget. Those costs come out of Veteran's Affairs which was set up to segregate those costs from Defense. Now of course the RW wants to take moneyaway from them because they are slackers I suppose.