Cost of Treating Veterans Will Rise Long Past Wars

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Photo by Philip Scott Andrews/The New York Times

James Dao reports in The New York Times:

Though the withdrawal of American military forces from Iraq and Afghanistan will save the nation billions of dollars a year, another cost of war is projected to continue rising for decades to come: caring for the veterans.

By one measure, the cost of health care and disability compensation for veterans from those conflicts and all previous American wars ranks among the largest for the federal government — less than the military, Social Security and health care programs including Medicare, but nearly the same as paying interest on the national debt, the Treasury Department says.

Read the whole story in The New York Times.