Paul Wellstone has been one of the Senate's leading voices for America's veterans.  As a member of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, Wellstone often helps Minnesota veterans cut through bureaucratic red tape in order to ensure that the government provides the benefits to veterans that they deserve. Wellstone introduced and successfully pushed into law the Hmong Veterans' Naturalization Act, helping thousands of veterans and their families receive U.S. citizenship.  Wellstone has pushed time and again for additional funding for veterans' health care and has also introduced the Veterans' Bill of Rights, a major piece of legislation that would ensure that veterans receive the quality of health care that they deserve.

Wellstone Serves On the Veterans' Affairs Committee. 
Paul Wellstone serves on the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, where he has worked on behalf of Minnesota's veterans to increase health care benefits, expand citizenship, and provide additional benefits to those veterans who have been overlooked by Washington bureaucrats and politicians.

Wellstone's Office Frequently Helps Veterans Cut Through Bureaucratic Red Tape In Order to Provide Benefits. 
Paul Wellstone's Minnesota Senate Office regularly helps veterans in need of compensation and benefits cut through bureaucratic red tape in Washington at the Department of Veterans' Affairs in order to provide them those benefits.

Wellstone Authored the 'Homeless Veterans Assistance Act,' Which Will Help Thousands of America's Veterans.
Paul Wellstone authored, pushed, and enacted into law in 2001 a measure to improve the living conditions of hundreds of thousands of American veterans.  Wellstone's new law helps treat homeless veterans who suffer with alcohol and drug addiction and provide one-stop shopping places for community-based care, mental health services, treatment, and assistance in getting affordable housing.  With more than 500,000 American veterans roaming the streets homeless in any given year, a large portion of whom served during the Vietnam era, Wellstone fought passionately for this critical assistance package.  When Republicans blocked Wellstone's attempt to enact the measure into law, he retaliated by blocking all Republican legislation.  The Republicans caved, Wellstone's measure was passed, and now America's homeless veterans will be getting the assistance they deserve.

Wellstone Called for GAO Investigation Into Delays Of Veterans Records.  In June 2000, Paul Wellstone joined Senator Tom Harkin in calling on the General Accounting Office (GAO) to investigate delays in responding to requests for veterans' records from the National Personnel Records Center (NPRC) in St. Louis, Missouri.  NPRC holds the complete records of discharged members of each branch of the military. Wellstone said his staff and others have experienced long delays in response to their regular communication with NPRC on behalf of veterans and their families.

Wellstone Was Chosen 1995 'Legislator Of the Year' By the Vietnam Veterans of America. 
In 1995, Paul Wellstone was chosen a 'Legislator of the Year' by the Vietnam Veterans of America for his tireless crusade on behalf of veterans across the country.

FIGHTING FOR VETERANS' HEALTH CARE

Wellstone Succeeded In Providing $17 Billion Over 10 Years To Veterans Health Care In 2002.
In April 2001, Paul Wellstone successfully pushed through an amendment to the FY '02 Budget Resolution, a non-binding budget blueprint, that provided $17 billion over 10 years to boost health care funding for veterans.  The measure provided $1.7 billion in the FY '02 budget resolution for veterans health care over President Bush's proposed $900 million

Wellstone Introduced A 'Veterans Bill of Rights.'
Paul Wellstone has introduced and called for the enactment of a 'Veterans Bill of Rights,' for every veteran who receives care in the hundreds of Veterans Administration medical facilities across the country.  Under the proposal, the VA would have to provide: (1) high quality health care in a timely manner; (2) improved access for preventative and primary care; (3) the ability to see health care specialists in a timely manner; (4) a stronger voice in ensuring the courteous and compassionate reception of veterans at VA facilities; (5) the ability to use Medicare at VA facilities.

Wellstone Introduced Legislation Providing For A Nationwide VA-Medicare Program. 
Paul Wellstone introduced the 'Veterans' Health Care Preservation and Improvement Act of 1998,' which if passed would have authorized the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a nationwide Medicare Reimbursement program to provide more veterans the opportunity to use the VA medical system while securing an additional revenue stream for the financially strapped hospital system.

Wellstone Has Repeatedly Called For Full Funding of Veterans' Health Care.
Paul Wellstone has continually called for full funding of veterans' health care and inserted into his 'Veterans Health Care Preservation and Improvement Act of 1998' language that protected the VA medical system against any shortfall in collections from 3^rd party payments by guaranteeing that Congressional appropriations would make up the difference.  The bill declares that Congress should appropriate sufficient funds to provide quality health care for all veterans who use the VA medical system through the year 2002.

Wellstone Has Repeatedly Pushed To Provide Compensation To 'Atomic Veterans.'
For several years, Paul Wellstone has repeatedly pushed to provide justice to so-called 'Atomic Veterans,' who were exposed to radiation at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and at atmospheric nuclear tests.  For more than 50 years, many of them have been denied compensation for diseases that the Veterans' Administration recognizes as being linked to their exposure to radiation - otherwise known as radiogenic diseases. Many of these diseases are lethal forms of cancer.  Wellstone has introduced the 'Justice for Atomic Veterans'' legislation that would have added 3 radiogenic diseases - brain, lung, and colon cancers - to the list of diseases that VA presumes to be service-connected.  The measure has passed the Senate, but has never made it into law, partly because of opposition from the Clinton Administration. In June 2000, Wellstone sent a letter to then-VA Secretary Togo West criticizing the Clinton Administration's position on compensation for 'Atomic Veterans.'

Wellstone Cosponsored The 'Radiation Exposure Compensation Act Amendments of 2000.'
Paul Wellstone cosponsored the 'Radiation Exposure Compensation Amendments of 2000,' a new law that allows veterans who apply for compensation from the Department of Justice for brain, lung, and colon cancers to be given the benefit of the doubt.  However, unless additional legislation is passed, such as that introduced several times by Wellstone, that same veteran could be denied service connection by the VA.

Wellstone Sponsored A Measure Expressing the Sense of the Senate That Certain Types of Cancer Should Be Added to Veterans Affairs' Department Service-Connected Disabilities. 
Paul Wellstone sponsored and voted in favor of an amendment to the V.A.-HUD FY '00 Appropriations that expressed the sense of the Senate that "lung cancer, colon cancer, and brain and central nervous system cancer should be added to the list of radiogenic diseases that are presumed by the Department of Veterans Affairs to be service-connected disabilities."

Wellstone Pushed For Veterans' Health Care 'Rainy Day Fund.' 
Paul Wellstone introduced and pushed for a $3 billion veterans' health care 'Rainy Day' reserve fund to help veterans' health care programs in addition to the other normally appropriated VA funding. Under the Wellstone plan, decreasing the proposed 1999 GOP tax cuts that would have gone to individuals earning over $200,000 annually would have paid for the veterans' reserve funds.

Wellstone Introduced The 'Persian Gulf War Veterans Compensation Act of 1997. 
Paul Wellstone introduced the 'Persian Gulf War Veterans Compensation Act of 1997,' which would have extended until ten years after the date on which a veteran last performed active military duty in the Persian Gulf War the time period in which a chronic disability resulting from undiagnosed illness could be compensated through veterans' disability compensation. The legislation died in the Senate.

Wellstone Blasted Legislation Restricting Gulf War Veterans From Filing Claims Against Frozen Iraqi Funds.
In September 1997, Paul Wellstone blasted a foreign relations bill introduced in the Senate that would have let tobacco companies but not gulf war veterans file claims against $1.3 billion in frozen Iraqi funds.  Wellstone sent a letter to House and Senate conferees urging it be killed. 'If you think about what's happening to the vets, this little provision is just outrageous,' he said of the language that eliminated veterans from the pool of possible claimants and moved tobacco companies to the fore for the Iraqi assets frozen in American banks since the end of the 1991 gulf war.