[MILRETVET-INFO] Camp Lejeune Vets (1957-1987) Gain By Knowing Details Of Toxin Law
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- Date: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 11:14:36 -0600
Lejeune Vets Gain By Knowing Details Of Toxin Law
By Tom Philpott
10:13 a.m. CST November 13, 2014
A 2012 law that requires VA to cover health care of former Marines, sailors and
family members with ailments linked to 1957-to-1987 water contaminations at Camp
Lejeune, N.C., continues to surprise segments of the impacted population.
Some of the law's details bitterly disappoint those who believe they've been
harmed by exposure to poisons. But thousands of veterans who served at Lejeune
during that era have gained access to VA health care and likely don't know it
yet.
The quirkiness of parts of the Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act is coming
into sharper focus as the Department of Veterans Affairs takes its final,
long-awaited steps to fully implement the complex statute.
"Since the day the law was signed [Aug. 6, 2012] VA began providing health care
to Lejeune veterans," said Dr. Terry Walters, deputy chief consultant for
post-deployment health for the VA's Office of Public Health.
Yet it was only last month that VA began accepting applications from family
members requesting payment or reimbursement for private sector care to treat 15
conditions that the law links to the toxin exposure at Lejeune. They are: cancer
of lung, esophagus, breast, bladder or kidney; leukemia; multiple myeloma;
myelodysplastic syndromes; renal toxicity; hepatic steatosis; female
infertility; miscarriage; scleroderma; neurobehavioral effects or non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma.
To qualify for coverage, family members must show they spent at least 30 days at
Lejeune or in utero with mothers there from Jan. 1, 1957, to Dec. 31, 1987.
VA will cover any medical costs not covered by other health insurance but only
for treatment of those ailments. VA also will make retroactive payments for such
care, but only back to March 26, 2013, the date Congress funded the 2012 law
through a separate appropriations bill.
Lejeune veterans with out-of-pocket health care costs for any one of the 15
conditions are not eligible for retroactive reimbursement, Walters explained.
That's because the law presumes VA has provided care to them since the law was
signed. And the law doesn't provide for retroactive coverage before that date.
The law's greatest weakness for many Lejeune families is that it doesn't
compensate for deaths or illnesses they believe resulted from contaminated
water.
"This is a huge issue for these people. They want to be compensated," Walters
said. "The law only provides for health care. A lot of people get those two
things confused."
VA needed two years to start family member coverage, she said, because VA
effectively had to create a supplemental health insurance plan by writing rules,
hiring clinical care reviewers, creating computer systems and billing
mechanisms, and developing a method to transmit medical records from civilian
doctor offices to VA's financial service center for review.
"We're been in the business of providing health care to veterans for a very long
time. It's why we exist," Walters said. "But providing health care or medical
services to family members is somewhat new business. That's why it took a while
to flesh out the program, figure out how exactly we were going to comply with
the law and provide health care [coverage] to family members."
Many Lejeune vets still may not know that the 2012 law grants them access to VA
health care if they spent at least 30 days there over those 31 years - even if
they don't have one of 15 illnesses listed. Word is beginning to spread,
however. Through Sept. 30 this year, 16,320 Lejeune vets had applied for VA
health care citing the law; only 1,231 were receiving care for one of the
toxin-related conditions.
The Marine Corps estimates that up to a million veterans and dependents lived or
worked at Lejeune while the water was contaminated. Many of these vets already
were eligible for VA health care because of service-connected ailments or
financial need. But the law made many more eligible who otherwise wouldn't be.
Some might perceive this as a windfall but the law also creates gaps. For
example, it provides no health benefits to reservists who trained for months at
Lejeune but today lack official "veteran" status, which the law requires,
because they never were called to active duty for at least 180 days.
"I have a gentleman with scleroderma who was on active duty for training at Camp
Lejeune who I can't help," Walters said. "I want to help him but, because we are
implementing the law [as written], my hands are tied."
The law also doesn't help former civilian employees at Lejeune who have one or
more of the 15 conditions but no health care coverage.
"Did they drink the water? Yes of course they did," Walters said. A recent study
by the Agency for Toxic Substance and Abuse Registry found elevated risk of
death for Lejeune civilians from some types of cancers in comparing mortality
rates with civilians who had worked at Camp Pendleton, Calif., during the same
period.
Advocates for Marines, sailors and their families, and lawmakers who fought for
passage, know about the law's quirks. They still view it as an important first
step to helping families impacted by contaminants that the Navy Department had
failed for years to acknowledge.
Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.) had high hurdles to
clear to get any Lejeune bill passed, including resistance to new entitlement
spending amid a national debt crisis and no conclusive scientific finding that
toxins at Lejeune caused the many ailments reported by former Marine Corps
families.
"Statistically speaking, there has been nothing really solid" to show the toxins
caused diseases among Lejeune's population of that era, said Walters. "There has
been hints," she added.
Certainly the water was fouled by trichloroethylene, tetrachloroethylene,
benzene and vinyl chloride, which in high concentration can cause health
problems. But "the science to show whether drinking the contaminated water
results in cancers or adverse health effects is just not mature enough," Walters
said. Given the difficulty "to connect the dots," she said, Congress voted "to
provide some measure of healing, basically, of the injury to families and their
active duty service members."
The law's intent is to get medical care to veterans and afflicted family members
who have no other healthcare options. But the law also states that it does so
"notwithstanding that there is insufficient medical evidence to conclude that
such illnesses or conditions are attributable to such service."
Send comments to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120, email
milupdate@xxxxxxx <mailto:milupdate@xxxxxxx> or twitter: Tom Philpott
@Military_Update.
SOURCE: Shreveport Times at
http://www.shreveporttimes.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/11/13/lejeune-vets-
gain-knowing-details-toxin-law/18965559/
More Information:
The Honoring America's Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012
(http://veterans.house.gov/HR1627)
House Bill 1627
(http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1627enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1627enr.pdf)
Health Notice for Vets at Camp Lejeune 50s through the 80s
(http://www.va.gov/health/NewsFeatures/20120823a.asp)
Camp Lejeune Family Act of 2012
(http://www.jackson.va.gov/JACKSON/features/VA_seeking_Veterans_stationed_at_Cam
p_Lejeune.asp)
Even more information can be found via Internet searches for "Caring for Camp
Lejeune Families Act"
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