Rep. Ed Case urges Hawaiʻi’s eligible veterans to apply for PACT Act benefits

U.S. Rep Ed Case (HI-01) is urging Hawaiʻi veterans and their survivors who may be eligible for Department of Veterans Affairs health care benefits under the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics Act of August 2022 to file or at least complete and submit an intent to file before Aug. 9.

This will preserve eligibility for retroactive benefits back to the law’s enactment on Aug. 10, 2022.

The PACT Act is one of the VA’s largest health care and benefit expansion. Highlights of the law:

• Expands and extends eligibility for VA health care to certain diseases linked to exposures to toxins during service in the Vietnam and Gulf Wars and post-9/11 era as well as in nuclear testing.
• Adds more than 20 presumptive conditions for burn pits, Agent Orange and other toxic exposures.
• Adds more presumptive-exposure locations for Agent Orange and radiation.
• Requires the VA to provide a toxic exposure screening to every veteran enrolled in VA health care.
• Helps improve research, staff education and treatment related to toxic exposures. For those veterans and their survivors, there is no deadline for filing PACT Act claims. But in order for any benefits to also be paid back to the date of the law’s enactment, those claims must be filed by Aug. 9, 2023.

Case, a member of the U.S. House Committee on Appropriations and of its Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Subcommittee on Defense, co-introduced the PACT ACT.

He said in a press release: “The law is only as good as our veterans and survivors gaining full access to authorized benefits, including back pay and care where eligible. … The VA has also consistently said that even if veterans and survivors are uncertain whether they are eligible for PACT Act benefits, they should apply anyway.”

For questions or needs, veterans can contact Case’s office at 808-650-6688 or ed.case@mail.house.gov.

Click here to file a PACT Act claim or intent to file.