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Statement of Matthew S. Goldberg, Deputy Assistant Director for National Security, Projecting the Costs to Care for Veterans of U.S. Military Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, before the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, U.S. House of Representatives 1 (October 2007)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo9323 and id is 1 raw text is: Chairman Filner, Ranking Member Buyer, and other distinguished Members of the Committee, I appreciate the invitation to appear before you today to discuss the challenges that our nation faces in caring for veterans returning from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). My testimony will focus on the numbers of troops who have served in those operations and the num- bers who have sustained injuries and provide some indication of the severity of those injuries. I will also address the extent to which veterans of those operations have sought medical care from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the types of care they have received. Finally, I will discuss the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) projections of the resources that VA may require over the next 10 years not only to continue providing that medical care, but also to provide associ- ated benefits such as disability compensation paid to veterans with service-con- nected disabilities and dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC) paid to sur- vivors of service members.1 Summary CBO's analysis to date indicates the following: As of December 2006, more than 1 million active-duty military personnel and over 400,000 reservists had deployed to combat operations in the Iraq and Afghanistan theaters. Of those, 690,000 have either separated from the active component or become eligible for VA health care as reservists. In turn, one- third of those personnel (numbering 229,000) have sought VA medical care since 2002. About 3,800 U.S. troops have died while serving in OIF, and over 400 have died in OEF. A total of almost 30,000 troops have been wounded in action during those two operations. The survival rate among all wounded troops has averaged 90.2 percent during OIF and OEF combined. By comparison, the survival rate during the Vietnam conflict was 86.5 percent. Among seriously wounded troops, the survival rate was lower-76.4 percent-during the Vietnam conflict and has also been lower-80.6 percent-for OIF and OEF combined. Higher survival rates during OIF and OEF reflect the widespread use of body armor, as well as advances in battlefield medical procedures and aeromedical evacuation. 1. This testimony does not address issues that veterans face in obtaining disability ratings from the Departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs or the coordination of medical care and other benefits between those two departments. Many of those issues were recently studied in the following report: President's Commission on Care for America's Wounded Warriors, Serve, Support, Simplify: Report of the President's Commission on Care for America's Wounded Warriors, cochairs Bob Dole and Donna Shalala (July 2007).

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