Supreme Court Sides with Army Veteran in Overlapping GI Bill Benefits Case

Kate Kuzminski, director of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington D.C. think tank’s military program said the number of impacted veterans may be smaller than the 1.7 million figure, noting that the case was centered around a lost opportunity instead of veterans who were actually forced to use one GI bill benefits in lieu of another.

“I don’t know if there will be a push to kind of recoup the difference for people who were told that they had to continue on the Montgomery GI Bill before they could use their Post-911,” Kuzminski said. “Now that the law has changed, theoretically, [the VA] would have to take a look because they need to know how much they need to budget for if there is some sort of follow up for anyone who came after.”

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Kuzminski said the dissenting opinion by two of the court’s more conservative justices wasn’t surprising when it comes to balancing veteran’s issues with costs like the value of military service and providing service members with different social safety nets. While new for the Supreme Court, those philosophical questions have played out in law and policy, she said.

“There’s been a gradual shift over time in the perception of what types of health care benefits are provided to service members. Back towards the origins of the VA, it was very much clear service-connected, you were an amputee from an injury you sustained in war,” she said. “As we evolved over time and particularly post-Gulf war, it was at times difficult to separate what is service-connected from what is not.”

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