Death benefits for soldiers to continue

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, right, testifies at a hearing of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee regarding the effects of the government shutdown on military veterans benefits and services on Capitol Hill in Washington. 

Washington: Pentagon officials said on Wednesday that they would contract with a charity group, the Fisher House Foundation, to restore death benefits to families of service members killed in action, including a $100,000 payment, that have been stopped by the government shutdown. The officials said the Pentagon would reimburse the group after the shutdown ended.

But just before the Pentagon's announcement, the House voted unanimously to restore the benefits, a swift action reflecting the public outrage about this particular effect of the shutdown. On Wednesday, the remains of four soldiers killed over the weekend in Afghanistan were returned to families who had been initially told that the government could not pay for their death benefits or their funerals.

"How dare we not provide these grieving families with the necessary support in their time of need?" Rep. Sanford D. Bishop, D-Ga., asked on the House floor.

Although Pentagon officials insisted on Tuesday that they could not do anything about restoring death benefits without congressional approval, their agreement with Fisher House on Wednesday suggested that the officials had changed their minds.

The Senate will not take up the House bill now that the Defense Department has acted.

In addition to a $100,000 payment to each family, the death benefits include payment for burial and a 12-month basic allowance for housing, usually given in a lump sum to survivors commensurate with the rank of the service member.

The Pentagon "has determined that we can enter into a contract with the Fisher House Foundation to provide these benefits," Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Wednesday in a statement. He travelled to Dover Air Force Base, Del., for the return of the remains of the soldiers recently killed in Afghanistan and to meet with their families.

Death benefits had been initially withheld from, among others, the family of Lance Cpl. Jeremiah Collins Jr., 19, of the Marines, who died in Helmand province in Afghanistan on Saturday.

Fisher House provides military families with housing near hospitals, so they can be near sick or injured service members during a stay. Although the Pentagon could not solicit the group directly for what is essentially a loan, Sen. Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., brokered the arrangement.

Also on Wednesday, Eric K. Shinseki, the secretary of veterans affairs, told a House committee that $6 billion in disability compensation, pension and education payments to hundreds of thousands of veterans would be halted if the shutdown continued into late October. On Tuesday, thousands of workers with the veterans agency were put on furlough.

"Let me just say unequivocally that all the effects are negative," Shinseki said of a protracted shutdown. Pointing out that some veterans who work for the VA would lose both their income and benefits should the shutdown continue, he said, "I have the responsibility of keeping them from becoming homeless."

Although the Committee on Veterans Affairs tends to be less partisan than others, the tenor of the continuing fight between Congress and the White House bled into the hearing.

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., chairman of the committee, said he had been frustrated in efforts to get information about the effect of the shutdown, including whether veterans would be able to continue getting counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder. (They will.)

After commenting that the House had passed a bill to fund veterans' programs that the Senate had yet to take up, Rep. Tim Huelskamp, R-Kan., asked Shinseki, "Do you think Harry Reid doesn't like the VA or our veterans?" Reid is the Senate majority leader.

Shinseki, looking baffled, replied: "I think he highly values veterans. As to why Congress is unable to do its business, I will leave to the members to discuss."

Senate Democrats remain opposed to the House's piecemeal bills to reopen selective parts of the government.

"Ever since the government shut down nine days ago, the House has tried to act like the government isn't shut down," said Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.

US shutdown denies death benefits to families of four dead soldiers

Photo of Sgt Joseph Peters, First Lt Jennifer Moreno, Sgt Patrick Hawkins and Pfc Cody Patterson who were killed in Afghanistan

 
Washington: The families of four soldiers killed in Afghanistan last weekend will not receive death benefits or the money to pay for their funerals because of the government shutdown.

The bodies of Sergeant Patrick C Hawkins, 25; Pfc. Cody J. Patterson, 24; Sergeant Joseph M. Peters, 24; and First Lieutenant Jennifer M Moreno, 25, will arrive at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday. The four soldiers were killed Sunday in the Zhari district of Kandahar province when enemy forces attacked their unit with explosives.

But if their families want to meet the plane, they will have to pay their own way to Delaware.

Under the shutdown, Carl Woog, a Defense Department spokesman, said Tuesday, "the Department of Defense does not currently have the authority to pay death gratuities and other key benefits for the survivors of service members killed in action."

The benefits include $100,000 to each family; a 12-month basic allowance for housing, usually given in a lump sum to survivors commensurate with the rank of the service member; and burial benefits. The benefits are also being withheld from the family of Lance Cpl. Jeremiah Collins Jr, 19, of the Marines, whose death on Saturday in Helmand province is being investigated by the Pentagon. New hardships caused by the shutdown seem to emerge every day as the standoff between President Barack Obama and congressional Republicans entered its second week. But the denial of benefits to the families of fallen soldiers - however temporary - led to an unusual burst of outrage.

Senators took the floor to express their anger. In the House, members scrambled to write a bill to remedy the problem.

"It's an unbearable loss," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the majority leader, said on the Senate floor of the soldiers' families. "But now they're being denied death benefits because of this senseless shutdown. It's shameful and embarrassing.

"There are no words to describe this situation," he said.

Pentagon military and civilian personnel have largely escaped furloughs through legislation signed by Obama and on orders from the defense secretary. But the death benefits are not covered by either move.

Last week, Congress quickly passed the Pay Our Military Act to ensure that active-duty soldiers and civilian support staff members were paid for their work. Over the weekend, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said the Pentagon concluded that most of its 400,000 civilian employees were covered by the bill.

Some House Republicans have suggested, without citing specific language in the bill, that it also covered death benefits. "The intent of Congress was to permit DOD to honor all payment and allowances to service members," Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said in a letter to Hagel.

"The department's decision to not make these payments is a matter of choice," he added. "And until a correction is made to the law, it is up to you to make the appropriate judgment based on a more correct interpretation."

The House Appropriations Committee is moving to get a bill to the floor to reinstate the benefits as early as Wednesday.

"Frankly, I think it's disgraceful that they're withholding these benefits," Speaker John A. Boehner said in a brief news conference Tuesday afternoon. "But again tomorrow, the House is going to act specifically on this and I hope the president will sign it."

The Pentagon strongly denied that the current legislation allowed for benefits to be paid without further congressional action.

"The fact that the House is developing new legislation on this matter shows Congress fully understands that DOD does not have the legal authority to provide these death benefits," a senior military official said. "Secretary Hagel is outraged and disgusted by this situation, but the law is clear."

Such legislation is likely to have strong support in both the House and Senate. "We ought to sit down and work it out," said Senator John McCain, R-Ariz.

After Reid spoke, Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and one of the architects of the shutdown, came to the Senate floor to say, "All of us weep for those servicemen and women who have lost their lives in defense of our great nation, and I would note that this Senate can right now today move to correct the problem."

Senator Joe Manchin III, D-W.Va., announced Tuesday that he had worked with Ken Fisher, the chief executive of Fisher House Foundation, a service group for veterans, to give families an advance grant to cover flights, hotels and other incidental costs for family members to attend funerals until the government can make reimbursements.

"After losing a loved one in service to our nation, these families should not have to endure more pain as the result of political squabbling," Fisher said in a statement.

India no country for old men: UN report

Geneva: India stands a dismal 73rd in the list of 91 countries, according to a UN-backed study on the wellbeing of the elderly in a rapidly ageing world.

Global AgeWatch Index 2013 released the rankings, based on data from the World Health Organisation and other agencies on older people's incomes, health, education, employment and their environments.

Sweden is the best place to grow old and Afghanistan the worst, according to the study that warns many countries are ill-prepared to deal with the old age time bomb.

In a rapidly greying world, the Global AgeWatch Index - the first of its kind - found that Sweden, known for its generous welfare state, followed by Norway and Germany were best equipped to deal with the challenges of an ageing population.

How countries care for their senior citizens will become increasingly important as the number of people over the age of 60 is set to soar from some 809 million today to more than two billion by 2050 - when they will account for more than one in five people on the planet, the report said.

"The 21st century is seeing an unprecedented global demographic transition, with population ageing at its heart," the authors of the study said.

The survey ranked many African and South Asian countries as the worst places to be retired, with Tanzania, Pakistan and Afghanistan rounding out the bottom three.

The index was compiled by the HelpAge International advocacy group and the UN Population Fund in a bid to provide much-needed data on ageing populations worldwide.

Praise for Bolivia, Sri Lanka

It ranked the social and economic wellbeing of the elderly in 91 countries, by comparing data from the World Health Organisation and other global agencies on older people's incomes, health, education, employment and their environments.

While the world's richest countries - including Western European nations, the US and Japan - predictably ranked highly, the report somewhat surprisingly found that a number of lower-income countries had put in place policies that significantly improved the quality of life for their elderly.

Bolivia, which offers free healthcare to its older citizens despite being one of the poorest surveyed countries, and Sri Lanka, with its long-term investments in health and education, were among those singled out for praise.

HelpAge's chief executive Silvia Stefanoni said a lack of urgency in the debate about older people's wellbeing "is one of the biggest obstacles to meeting the needs of the world's ageing population".

"By giving us a better understanding of the quality of life of women and men as they age, this new index can help us focus our attention on where things are going well and where we have to make improvements," she said in a statement.

The study also noted that some of the top-ranking countries had introduced successful policies to care for the elderly at a time when they were still emerging economies.

Sweden for instance put in place its universal pension system a century ago, while Norway introduced its system in 1937, it said.

"Limited resources need not be a barrier to countries providing for their older citizens," the report said.

The emerging economies of Brazil and China ranked 31st and 35th in the survey, while South Africa, India and Russia came in much lower at 65, 73 and 78 respectively.

On a positive note, the survey found that some countries and regions that were ageing the fastest were already preparing for the democratic shift.

Latin American countries, which face a doubling of their elderly populations by 2050, are well represented among the top 30, the index showed, with Chile and Uruguay in 19th and 23rd place.

But some eastern European countries still have much work to do, it showed, with Moldova ranking 76th and Montenegro at 83rd place.