Government should keep its word to vets
It would seem fairly basic as ethics go: You make a promise, you keep it. What part of that equation doesn’t the government understand? A federal appeals court recently told World War II and Korean War veterans that military recruiters had no legal authority to promise them free lifetime health care if they gave 20 years of their life to their country.
The issue affects hundreds of thousands of soldiers who entered the service between 1941 and 1956 and who remained for two decades. As a result of the agreement with recruiters, these men and women did, indeed, receive free medical benefits, but only until 1995, when the Pentagon ended the program for veterans over 65 who were eligible for Medicare.
There was just one glaring problem: Many of the vets had to purchase supplemental policies to fill the inevitable coverage gaps.
For at least one Air Force/Navy veteran, that has meant shelling $15,000 out of his own pocket to cover costs between 1995 and 2001. Robert Reinlie of Florida, who flew 30 missions over Europe as a B-17 navigator during World War II, is one of two lead plaintiffs in the suit. He said he is bitterly disappointed over the decision. Who can blame him?
Congress recently adopted legislation providing free health care for Reinlie and other older veterans beginning this year. What’s in dispute is the cost these individuals bore during the “gap” years.
The Justice Department estimates that these could run into the billions. Even some of the judges involved in the ruling recognize that the government is on shaky moral ground if it continues to deny the vets the payments they are due. Count among them Chief Circuit Judge Haldane Robert Mayer of the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
“They were told, in effect, if you disrupt your family, if you work for low pay, if you endanger your life and limb, we will in turn guarantee lifetime health benefits,” Mayer wrote in his dissent. “There is no doubt that the government made an unambiguous offer.”
Neither is there any doubt that even in the absence of a valid contract, the government has a moral obligation to honor its commitment.
With our nation in the throes of war and looking at the possibility of war on a second front, it is not the time to leave thousands of men and women twisting in the wind, essentially abandoned by the nation they served.
November 29, 2002