Care for U.S. veterans could cost $662 bln: study (Reuters)

Care for U.S. veterans could cost $662 bln: study

February 2, 2007

BOSTON (Reuters) - Medical costs for U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could
range from $350 billion to $662 billion over the next 40 years, as soldiers survive injuries that
would have killed them in past conflicts, according to a Harvard University study.

Due to improvements in battlefield medicine and equipment, there are now about 16 "nonmortally
wounded" soldiers for every death, far more than the 2.6 soldiers wounded per death in Vietnam,
the study said, citing Department of Veterans' Affairs data.

The author of the study, Linda Bilmes, a lecturer at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of
Government, presented her findings at an academic conference in January. They were released
publicly by the university this week.

The potential costs include medical care, disability payments and other benefits paid to injured
veterans and assume that 44 percent of veterans eventually claim disability. That was the
percentage of claims from the first Gulf War. Bilmes' calculations assume that by 2016, 2 million
soldiers will have participated in these wars.

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