Section: National

Vets who smoked protest loss of health benefits

WASHINGTON -- Every state is a winner in the $200 billion transportation bill moving through Congress. But veterans with tobacco-related illnesses are protesting that they are the losers, their health benefits given over to pay for roads.

Veterans are protesting a plan to eliminate VA health benefits for tobacco-related diseases to help finance the six-year highway and mass transit spending bill.

"A shameless money-grabbing scheme," said Disabled American Veterans National Commander Harry McDonald.

"Blindly looting veterans' programs is not a legitimate or honorable way to fund our transportation needs," four groups wrote House Transportation Committee Chairman Bud Shuster, R-Pa.

For now, it appears they are losing the battle. The administration, looking for revenues to fund its priorities, has tried for several years to rescind a ruling by the Veterans Affairs Department general counsel that veterans with diseases resulting from in-service tobacco use are eligible for health benefits and compensation.

And both White House officials and lawmakers now putting the final touches on the highway bill have suggested that the estimated $10.5 billion that would be saved by eliminating the program could help pay for more road building.

The VA, which also wants to end tobacco benefits, estimates the five-year cost of treating tobacco-related illnesses at closer to $17 billion. VA Secretary Togo West told a March hearing that the influx of some 500,000 future tobacco-related claims could cripple the system. "VA's claims system could be so overwhelmed as to result in unconscionable claims processing delays for all VA claimants."

The American Legion's Phil Budahn remembers his Army basic training in the early 1970s when they got a five-minute break every hour and "if you were smoking, the drill sergeant left you alone." The military, he said, "had a culture that promoted smoking" going back to World War II when cigarettes were handed out free as part of field rations.

Now, he said, Legion members are telling their lawmakers that "people don't want nice roads built at the expense of sick veterans."

"Even in areas where we need better roads, we're hearing about it," said Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., ranking Democrat on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee and a supporter of the tobacco benefit. "Clearly, veterans were addicted during their service, and it seems to me they should get the help they are entitled to."

Rep. Chris Smith, R-N.J., said there was "very, very strong reaction" at a meeting he attended in New Jersey. "They were encouraged to smoke, cigarettes were given out like chocolate, and they got hooked," Smith said.