For a measure, the cost of the health care and compensation of disability for Veterans of the conflict and all previous American wars figure among the largest of the federal Government, less military, Social Security and health care programs including Medicare, but almost the same thing that pay interest on the national debt, said the Department of the Treasury.
Put an end to the current wars will not lower costs for Veterans; Indeed, it will increase more pronounced for decades as the population of Veterans Iraq and Afghanistan expands, ages and becomes more sick. To date, more than 2.2 million troops have served in wars.
Studies have shown that the years of greater government health care and disability compensation costs for Veterans of past wars arrived 30 to 40 years later ended up in these wars. For Viet Nam, this peak has not been achieved.
In Washington, the impasse broken on cutting federal spending now is raising alarms among groups of veterans and some legislators that the seemingly inexorable costs of the benefits of veterans will stimulate a backlash against these programs.
Although currently there is strong bipartisan support for programs for veterans, budget proposals, including that of Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma and representative Michele Bachmann, Republican of Minnesota, have been asked to cut benefits for veterans and military retirees.
"These proposals have been pushed back until now", said David Autry of disabled American veterans. "But we have more vigorous hawks budget today." "If they are willing to take the nation on the brink of insolvency, who knows what else might do"?
Even if there are no cuts to programs for veterans, the current state of mind of likely budgetary restrictions forced the Department of Veterans Affairs to do without the large spending increases it has received from the Congress in the recent past.
This means the efforts of groups of Veterans to expand existing health programmes, provide additional benefits to veterans Viet Nam or establish new research on things as traumatic brain injury or loss of hearing will face difficult battles uphill, say lawmakers and veterans advocates.
"Nobody is thinking about the costs of living that this country is responsible," said the Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, who is President of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. "I am really concerned."
In a hearing before the panel Wednesday, Heidi Golding, an analyst with the Congressional Budget Office, said that the annual cost of care for Veterans of the wars of Iraq and Afghanistan would almost triple or more over the next decade, increasing to $ 8.4 million of $ 5.5 million in 2020, of 1.9 billion dollars in 2010.
At that hearing, Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Veterans United States Iraq and Afghanistan, also expressed concern that veterans disability checks that may not be paid if Congress does not raise the debt limit next week.
With an annual budget of more than 125 million dollars, the Department of Veterans Affairs runs a national health system serving more than eight million people who have left the military service, some 700,000 of whom are current wars. The Agency also administers a compensation of disability for millions of veterans wounded in service.
Estimated costs in the long run these programs is an art complex, controversial, and nobody in the Government more than 10 years ago. But independent experts and the Government agree that for various reasons that the costs are only a few determined to continue growing even if large number of Veterans of World War II and the war of Korea is dying.
The reasons have much to do with improvements in battlefield medicine and equipment. More troops are now surviving injuries: 90 per cent, compared to 86% in Viet Nam, according to the Congressional Budget Office. But it also means that they are becoming more troops home with serious and complex wounds.
On the other hand, nearly one of every five members returning from deployment are thought to have symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or major depression, according to a study by the RAND Corporation. A similar number are thought to have suffered traumatic brain injury. Although not all seek help, it is expected that a significant percentage receive care of the system veterans, in part by efforts to reduce the stigma of mental health in the military.
Also add to tensions within the Department, long-time youth have been searching for care of the system that is planned, possibly because they do not have private health insurance. Outreach activities by the Department of veterans and veterans groups may also have increased enrollment, experts say.
Linda Bilmes, a scholar from Harvard who has done extensive research on the impact of the war, said that all these factors together suggested that "the real cost in 30, 40 or 50 years will be even more of what you plan."
"And with the hope of life, get more," said, "the cost will probably be peak later than in previous wars."
Ms. Bilmes, Professor of finance at the Kennedy government school, has been estimated that the total cost of the the health care and disability compensation for Veterans of the current wars will be almost a trillion dollars over the next 40 years.
Some academics and Government officials say that its projections are too high. But there is broad agreement in its larger than the costs of maintaining point climbing for decades.
"Because we saved the lives of the people," said Gordon Adams, a high budget in the Clinton Administration Officer, "we will be paying Bill for some time."
Mr. Adams, Professor of international relations at American University, said that it considered very unlikely that Congress would never cut veterans benefits. But Ms. Bilmes do not agree.
"I think that when times are tough, there is no sacred cows," he said. "There was a time when it would be unthinkable that we would be talking about pensions cut for teachers, firefighters and police officers." "Still in the country which is what we are looking at today."
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