Vets condemn plan to bill private insurance for combat injuries

WASHINGTON — An Obama administration proposal to bill veterans' private insurance companies for combat-related injuries has prompted veterans groups to condemn the plan as unethical and powerful lawmakers on Capitol Hill to promise their opposition.

The proposal — intended to save the Department of Veterans Affairs $530 million a year — would authorize the VA to bill private insurance companies, or so-called third-party billing, for the treatment of injuries and medical conditions related to military service, such as amputations, post-traumatic stress syndrome and other battle wounds. The VA already pursues third-party billing for nonservice-related conditions.

Veterans groups said the change would abrogate the government's responsibility to care for the war-wounded.

Lawmakers explicitly ruled out the proposal Tuesday in budget recommendations from the Senate and House veterans' affairs committees.

The chairman of the Senate committee, Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, said a majority of the committee members rejected the plan as fundamentally unfair.

Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., a senior member of both the Veterans Affairs and Budget committees, warned Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki last week that the idea would be "dead on arrival," and she vowed Tuesday that any budget containing the VA provision "is not going to pass."

"The VA has an obligation to pay for service-related care, and they should not be nickel-and-diming vets in the process," she said in an interview.

"This proposal means that family members will be hurt because, if a vet meets the maximum (benefit amount) for their insurance, their wife and kids would not be able to get insurance (benefits) any more. ... God forbid a wounded vet from Iraq has a wife who gets breast cancer."

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Tuesday that the Obama administration has not yet made "the final ... decision on third-party billing as it relates to service-related injuries."

Veterans groups described the plan as a puzzling political misstep by the new administration in its relations with the 25 million Americans who have served in the military.

"It could be a rookie mistake," said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, who attended a White House meeting Monday.