VA Incompetence Could Be A Death Sentence For Terminally Ill Camp Lejeune Water contamination victims

Marines might not get the cancer treatment they need because the VA is not processing Camp Lejeune Justice Act claims fast enough and forcing veterans to file laws

Thursday, April 20, 2023 - It appears the Veterans Administration's (VA) history of incompetence in processing claims for water contamination compensation is continuing even after the passage of the Camp Lejeune Justice Act. We are in April of 2023 and the VA has yet to settle a single Camp Lejeune Justice Act Claim. The VA has six months from the filing of a claim to either pay or reject the claim and most seem to have been ignored. Some think that the VA would ask for additional information in certain cases instead of shuffling the claim to another case worker or rejecting an claims outright. The VA may be compounding their CLJA problems by delaying as many of the veterans making claims are elderly or dying of cancer. As a result of dying, a Camp Lejeune Justice Act claim for monetary reimbursement may progress to become a wrongful death lawsuit costing the government exponentially more. According to RollCall.com, "A growing percentage of cases are becoming wrongful death suits rather than damage claims for illnesses as more Marines and their family members who were sickened by the tainted water, often many years after the exposure, lose their lives, according to several people involved in the litigation. A lot of these people are elderly and they're up there in age, said Mike Partain, a Florida man born at Camp Lejeune in 1968 and diagnosed with breast cancer, an extremely rare disease in men, in 2007. Is this going to legally just take so long that most of us are dead before anything happens?"

The VA had promised to build an infrastructure to handle the tens of thousands of Camp Lejeune Justice Act claims which was expected since the passage of The Act on August 11, 2022, but that has not materialized. As a result, all of the claims filed with the VA more than six months ago have expired and will not be processed, leaving the injured party free to file a Camp Lejeune water lawsuit. A CLJA water lawsuit forces the military to address a veterans grievance regarding cancer or other illness they allegedly developed from drinking Camp Lejeune water from 1953 to 1987. A lawyer writing for IndyWeek.com outlines a veteran's new right to file a lawsuit seeking lump-sum monetary damages. " By virtue of this new law, they can now file a claim with the government to receive financial compensation for their diagnoses. Furthermore, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act prohibits the government from asserting immunity from the lawsuits filed by veterans to ensure everyone obtains the money they are entitled to. The family members of veterans can also seek legal recourse under this recently enacted law if they spent time at Camp Lejeune and developed a related disease." The Camp Lejeune Justice Act was intended to address the VA's shortcomings in accurately processing water contamination claims. Since 2012 the VA has approved only about 5% of the claims made according to RollCall. Failing to get veterans the money they deserve is tantamount to denying them the medical treatment they need to treat their Camp Lejeune water cancer. For many, unfortunately, it is also a death sentence.

Information provided by CampLejeuneJusticeActClaim.com, a website devoted to providing news about Camp Lejeune Justice Act Claim, including a free no-cost, no-obligation Camp Lejeune Justice Act Claim.