June 16 (UPI) -- The Senate passed a bill Thursday, requiring the government to cover healthcare costs for veterans exposed to toxic burn pits while serving in the military.
The bill was passed by a vote of 84 to 14, with two abstentions.
The Honoring our PACT Act allows the Veterans Affairs Department to now consider a veteran with any of 23 conditions for care if they had been deployed to a combat zone during the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.
The bill is expected to pass a final vote in the House next week before heading to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law.
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"This bill will provide expanded access to health care and disability benefits for veterans harmed by certain toxic exposures, whether in the jungles of Vietnam or the mountains of Afghanistan," Biden said in a statement released by the White House.
"It will also let the Department of Veterans Affairs move more quickly and comprehensively in the future to determine if illnesses are related to military service, and it will offer critical support to survivors who were harmed by exposures," Biden said.
"Importantly, the bill includes the tools and resources to ensure that the VA can effectively implement it."
"Veterans suffering from toxic exposure have been relying on a broken system cobbled together through decades of patchwork fixes that often leaves them without health care or benefits," Tweeted the bill's sponsor, Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran.
The bill is named after the late Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson, who died in 2020 after being exposed to toxic pits during his military service while deployed to Kosovo and Iraq with the Ohio National Guard.
Biden made the initiative a priority after the death of his son. Beau Biden, a member of the Army National Guard and Delaware Attorney General, died of brain cancer in 2015.
During a Memorial Day address to members of the military, the president said he suspects the cancer was a result of the toxic burn pits that the military used to burn waste products. Beau Biden served in Iraq.
"I urge the House to swiftly pass this bill so I can sign it into law right away," Biden said in his statement Thursday.
