The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs has approved more than 20,000 claims for Coloradans under a new law designed to boost health care coverage for veterans exposed to toxins and burn pits while serving overseas.
The figures come as President Joe Biden on Tuesday celebrated 1 million claims granted since he signed the PACT Act into law nearly two years ago.
“We can never fully thank you for all the sacrifices you’ve made,” Biden told veterans in New Hampshire on Tuesday. “In America, we leave no veteran behind. That’s our motto.”
The VA touts the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act — known as the PACT Act — as perhaps the largest health care and benefit expansion in the agency’s history.
It seeks to address the impacts of burn pits in Iraq and Afghanistan, in which chemicals, tires, plastics, medical equipment and human waste were disposed of on military bases.
The law requires the VA to assume that certain respiratory illnesses and cancers were related to burn pits or other toxic exposure without veterans having to prove the link. Before the law, the VA denied 70% of disability claims that involved burn pit exposure.
Benefits under the PACT Act, though, extend beyond the post-9/11 wars to include more presumptive conditions for Agent Orange used during the Vietnam War as well as radiation. The law also requires the VA to provide a toxic exposure screening to every veteran enrolled in VA health care.
The VA received more than 32,600 claims from Colorado veterans under the new law and approved 20,313 of them. More than 4,500 people from Colorado enrolled to receive their care from the VA under the law’s authority. More than 400,000 veterans live in Colorado, including nearly 70,000 veterans who served in post-9/11 wars.
“We passed the PACT Act to honor our promise to those who served our nation,” Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper said in a statement. “Now, veterans in Colorado and across the country are receiving these life-changing benefits, and we won’t stop until every veteran gets the care they deserve.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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