presumption for disability benefits. so if you have a veteran, right, who cannot work, they can t do their post-service job, they re taken care of, their family is taken care of for what may be a service-related injury that s right. that s right. if you served in any of these countries and you come down to 15 different illnesses on the senate side, on the house side it s 23. we will presume your illness is because of your service overseas. . i know you are hoping the house takes this up, beef it up, you get more and that this will pass. but what is the holdup? what is the obstacle to getting veterans the coverage that they need for, you know, exposure to burn pits like even general petraeus said come on. . it s money. health care is expensive in this country. it s even more expensive when you are talking about rare cancers that are never going
ineligible veterans through the va system through open enrollment. the u.s. military used burn pits. you may not know this. this is what they did. they used them in war zones. they used them on bases. and they disposed of trash, all kinds of trash, carcinogenic trash by burning it. the smoke from the pits often contain substances no surprise, that negatively impact the health. so let s talk about this bill, what it does, what it doesn t do with the ceo of iraq and afghanistan veterans of america jeremy butler. so, look, the word on this from veterans groups it seems is great. where s the rest? first, let s just remind people who burn pits are and how many people they affect. this is really almost like agent orange for the post 9/11 generation that s exactly right. and i appreciate you bringing this up right now.
away, they can only be treated. that s basically what the scaled back legislation says. it says we are acknowledging there s a problem. but if we were to take care of all of you as we promised we would do when we sent you overseas, we wouldn t have enough money for that. we will give some of you a little something and hope that it goes away. so it was actually through iava that i met wesley black who died recently and was exposed to burn pits. very young man. we shot this this past summer. he decide from stage 4 colon cancer. under this bill that the senate passed, would someone like wesley be able to get these benefits? . sadly, probably not. . really? the way this legislation works is incident basic live says for the last 10 years. if you came off active duty in 10 years, there s some health
despite republican attempts with slogans like defund the police, they have been denounced from president biden to speaker nancy pelosi who actually represents a san francisco district. the ultimate proof is that it was san francisco voters who drew the line and killed kicked the radicals off the school board. a reminder even in your divided times we are far for into our common sense than it might seem. that s your reality check. it was a clear message there. we think you should be doing a different job than you ve been doing. like your job. . thanks so much, john. the senate has passed bay i bipartisan bill that expands benefits for veterans who have been exposed to burn pits. the health care for burn pit veterans act will extend the period of health care eligibility from five to ten years following discharge for military service. it opens the door to previously
if you deployed to afghanistan or iraq, you were probably exposed to a burn pit. it s almost up avoidable. multiple acre size burning trash heaps. this is illegal here in the u.s. and has been for decades. you just can t do this here. but in these overseas locations, this was standard process. not only would you dump everything in there, but service members themselves were off responsible for doing the dumping and keeping them alight and keeping them going. if you were one of 3.5 million who deployed to afghanistan and iraq in the global war on terror, you were probably exposed a burn pit. the numbers are staggering. three in four veterans ex monthsed to burn pits, and most of them were, report they are having symptoms they think are related to or they are sure they are related to their exposure to burn pits. let s talk about this bill. it goes through the senate. it seems like yay. but it is only a little bit of what you really need. that s right. it s the frustrating process of