Veterans deserve all the support they can get when they get sick or suffer from any kind of injury since they helped our country when they did military service. Regardless of that, there are still many unfair situations affecting veterans, and one of them is the lack of help when they suffer from toxic exposures.
It’s not uncommon for veterans to suffer from toxic exposures since veterans who, for example, served at Marine Corps air stations were exposed to several chemicals harmful to people, such as Ra 226 and battery acid.
Vietnam veterans suffering from toxic exposure also need help since most of them are affected by agent orange exposure. This applies, too, to Gulf War veterans and post-9/11 veterans, and due to the number of people needing help to cover medical bills, the PACT act was enacted.
This act helps veterans exposed to burn pits and other toxic exposures, so it’s what they needed to get more support from VA health care facilities. Are you looking forward to learning more about the matter? Read this page to know more about PACT act-related benefits and how veterans and their families can benefit from it!
We are Paul Ehline Ride, and we host an annual memorial ride to raise awareness for toxic-exposed veterans and veterans suffering from PTSD. Our goal is to help veterans get the VA health care benefits they deserve, and we do it with the help of other communities, such as the leathernecks. Call us if you need our help!
What Are the Benefits of VA Health Care?
VA health care has many benefits, and that’s one of the reasons it’s that difficult to get health care services for veterans after they are exposed to chemicals or other toxic substances. However, once you get support from the Department of Veterans Affairs, you get a lot off your plate.
Veterans enjoying VA health care, for example, can get periodic checkouts and preventive treatment for future injuries. They can also get prescribed drugs from VA providers and professional diagnoses from other health care facilities.
Unfortunately, it’s not that easy for veterans exposed to toxic substances in an air station, in Vietnam, or during the Gulf War to get that help. You need to file a VA claim and apply for its benefits if you want to get funds to cover your medical program.
The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act, though, expands VA health care eligibility terms and gives you some other benefits you didn’t have before.
Things are different when dealing with other things, such as disability compensation and other injuries, since this article focuses mainly on toxic exposure injuries since it’s one of the main parts of the PACT expanded benefits.
These are the main benefits you can get when enrolled in VA health care:
- Inpatient and outpatient care at several VA facilities.
- Access to prescribed drugs from professional VA providers.
- Access to community care providers and long-term care.
- Mental health care.
- Professional clinical diagnosis.
- Checkups.
- Preventive treatment.
The first step to getting VA benefits is to file a VA disability rating claim or to apply for PACT Act benefits, so do it as soon as you can if you need medical treatment for burn pits or toxic exposure.
You can call Paul Ehline Ride if you have any questions about the matter since we are more than willing to help you.
How Does the PACT Act Work?
Many people don’t understand how the Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act works, but it brought us the biggest change Veterans Affairs benefits have had in its history.
The PACT Act addresses many of the main issues veterans were suffering from when they lacked the help of VA health care. Why didn’t they have VA health care help? Because it’s difficult to get accepted for VA benefits if you are suffering from toxic exposure injuries.
Hence, one of the main things this new law does for combat veterans is to expand the list of presumptive conditions people can use to get VA resources. Additionally, the PACT Act also offers more advantages than the ones you already received when looking for medical treatment.
Regardless of that, you still need to apply for PACT Act benefits if you want to get help after suffering from any service-connected disability. There hadn’t been any change in VA history as big as this benefit expansion, so this is something huge for veterans and survivors.
Are you looking forward to applying for PACT Act-related benefits and services? Here are some of the primary changes this law brings to the table:
- Toxic exposure screening for anyone enrolling for VA health care.
- It will expand benefits for people suffering from toxic exposure to agent orange and veterans from the Gulf War.
- It gives people 20 additional presumptive conditions for veterans having a treatment related to burn pits and toxic exposure.
- It adds more presumptive exposure locations for veterans exposed to agent orange.
- It gives veterans more resources for researching toxic exposure-related diseases and improves the treatment they receive.
Does the Department of Veterans Affairs Do Enough for Veterans?
This is one of the main questions people make themselves when they see how severe the toxic exposure situation is for veterans all over the country. The truth is that there are still many things that are still unfair to vets, but the PACT Act addresses many of those situations.
VA health care helps veterans with almost all their health issues, but the problem is that it’s not that difficult to enroll for those benefits. Apart from that, getting help when suffering from exposure to harmful substances takes a lot of time, so the problem is not the resources available for veterans but rather how difficult it is for them to get them.
Fortunately, the PACT Act came to change that, so now it’s simpler for veterans to get the medical treatment they deserve for all the time they served our country.
Proving your diseases are related to something that happened to you while you were on service is difficult, too, so now, some other illnesses, such as high blood pressure, count as presumptive conditions. That means you don’t need to prove your injuries are service-connected to receive VA health care and benefits for veterans.
About VA Health Care Eligibility – Am I Eligible for It?
As we mentioned before, eligibility is one of the main issues of enrolling for VA health care since doing it is not simple at all. You can apply for it from the government’s website, but you still need to gather a lot of information and meet many requirements before being accepted for it.
Doing all that can be overwhelming for veterans since they don’t always know how to do those things or how the process works. Thus, they can always work with the Paul Ehline Ride if they have any questions about the matter. Law offices such as the Ehline Law Firm support us, so you can also ask us any law-related questions if you were to have one.
The first thing you need to do before applying to get service disability benefits or filing a disability claim is to know if you meet all the eligibility requirements for it.
Any veteran enrolled for VA health care needs to:
- Not have any dishonorable discharge
- Having served on active duty
- Meet at least one of the enrollment requirements for VA health care
Those requirements are:
- Having served for at least 24 months with no interruptions
- Being discharged for service-connected disabilities
- Being discharged for a hardship or an early out
- Serving anytime before September 7, 1980
As we mentioned before, there are some presumptive exposure conditions for Vietnam veterans, veterans from the Gulf War, and combat veterans suffering from any health conditions related to burn pits and chemical exposure.
Toxic substances can make you develop serious illnesses such as cancer. There are many different types of cancer associated with toxic exposure, so here are the presumptive cancers when asking for VA help:
- Kidney cancer
- Lung cancer
- Brain cancer
- Head cancer
- Neck cancer
- Pancreatic cancer
- Reproductive cancer
- Any breathing-related cancer
- Melanoma
- Lymphoma
- Any lymphatic cancer
- Any gastrointestinal cancer
- Glioblastoma
You can get other injuries apart from cancer due to chemical exposure. Some of the presumptive ones are:
- Chronic bronchitis
- Chronic sinusitis
- Chronic rhinitis
- COPD
- After service diagnosed asthma
- Constrictive bronchiolitis
- Obliterative bronchiolitis
- Emphysema
- Pleuritis
- Pulmonary fibrosis
- Sarcoidosis
- Granulomatous disease
- ILD
Can Paul Ehline Memorial Ride Help Me?
Getting VA health care and benefits is not easy at all, and trying to do it all by yourself is not easy at all, so the best you can get as much help as you can when applying for VA resources. Our main goal is not only to raise awareness for vets diagnosed with cancer but also to support them in any way we can.
We receive donations from people who want to help vets in any way they can. Apart from that, we work with some agencies and communities to help veterans in many ways, and the support Ehline Law gives us is the perfect example of that.
The annual memorial ride we host for Paul Ehline is available for you to join, but we also host and sponsor several motorcycle events across the country.
Wrapping Up
Vets fought for the safety of our country, and not many of them get the acknowledgment they deserve for it. The least they can get is the medical treatment they need for illnesses that are not even their fault.
Thankfully, the PACT Act makes things easier for them now, so it’s easier for them to access VA resources. Call Paul Ehline Ride if you need help throughout the VA application process!
