The Comprehensive Veterans Health and Benefits and Military Retirement Pay Restoration Act of 2014, an act which would have provided additional education and job-training benefits for veterans as well as improved health care, was rejected by senate in March.
The bill included Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley’s Spouses of Heroes Education Act, which would provide education benefits to spouses of soldiers who die in the line of service. The act would also amend the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill to expand the Fry Scholarship, which provides full in-state tuition and fees to children of those who died in the line of duty, to include spouses.
According to Merkley’s office the act would also help the Veterans Administration work on eliminating the backlog of claims for benefits as well as improving care.
Sean Hanson left the University of Oregon to join the army in 2003 and returned to his studies at Lane Community College with the help of the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill.
Hanson can collect the benefits of the bill for 36 months, which includes a monthly housing allowance based on zip code — which, according to Hanson, varies from $1,100 to $1,200 per month. The benefits also include compensation for tuition and a book stipend, which is about $150 per term.
“I wanted a way to pay for college,” said Hanson, who spent four years in active service which ended in August 2008. Hanson served in Iraq for 15 months from June 2006 until September 2007. Once he was out of the reserves Hanson decided that “now was the time” to return to his education. Claiming the benefits was a “fairly painless process.”
“Sometimes I wish that everyone was a veteran,” Hanson said. “I appreciate the education more. I appreciate the opportunities. (The service) helped me nail down a work ethic.”
Hanson could be receiving veteran’s health care but opted out due to the shakiness of the program. “I don’t feel comfortable,” Hanson said, and cited the death of a veteran, Ray Velez, who died after going to the Roseburg VA hospital for a routine hernia surgery but suffered complications that went undetected.
“We had a really bad regional director for the VA who should have been fired or retired decades ago … and the former director of the hospital, who was also bad news,” Congressman Peter DeFazio said.
According to DeFazio and Merkley, the bill was rejected by the republicans.
“It was shot down in the senate by the republicans and they say their concern is they didn’t like the way it was paid for,” DeFazio said.
“Supporting our veterans should not be a partisan issue. Our men and women in uniform have stood up for us, and we must stand up for them. Unfortunately, the republicans are putting politics over good policy for our veterans. Oregon’s veterans deserve better,” Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley said in a press release.
The Veterans Services of Lane County serves approximately 35,000 veterans and dependents in Lane County. The organization provides applications for VA Health Care, VA Education Benefits and Surviving Spouse Benefits as well as filing for disability claims and obtention of military records.