Veterans have reason to be uncertain over what Congress and the Trump administration plan for blue-water Navy Vietnam War veterans who have Agent Orange-related ailments

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), chair of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee, insisted throughout a hearing last week that he and VA Secretary Robert Wilkie will deliver a solution to extend VA disability benefits and health care to veterans who served on ships off the coast of Vietnam during that war and today have conditions the VA presumes are linked to toxic defoliants sprayed on land.

But Wilkie, the only witness at the “State of the VA” hearing, wasn't prepared to echo the chairman's assurances. Wilkie didn't even mention the House-passed Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act (H.R. 299) in his oral statement highlighting priorities for improving the VA's organization and services.

[RELATED: VSOs Push Back Against Blue Water Navy Comments]

In Wilkie's written testimony, he reiterated VA opposition to extending benefits for up to 90,000 aging blue-water Navy veterans and survivors, saying the VA's “commitment to science and an evidence-based approach to creating or expanding [Agent Orange] presumptions should be maintained.”

If H.R. 299 is enacted absent stronger scientific evidence that shipboard veterans were exposed to wartime defoliants, Wilkie wrote, it “would erode confidence in the soundness and fairness of the veterans' disability benefits system, creating the impression that the system can be gamed by political activism.”

Also, he argued, it would increase pressure on the VA to “expand additional presumptions administratively, under a similarly liberal approach, favoring less deserving but politically demanding veterans over more deserving veterans who trust VA to do the right thing for all veterans.”

The VA estimates H.R. 299 would cost $6.7 billion over 10 years and impact efforts to reduce its backlog of claims and claim appeals. The VA would have to reopen 30,000 previously denied claims and 230,000 additional claims over the next decade.

Despite Wilkie's official hardline, Isakson said his talks with the secretary over the past month left him hopeful the VA will cooperate with Congress on finding a solution. Why he thought so was hard to decipher throughout the hearing.

“The Secretary is right in the reasons he's been opposed to just doing Blue Water period. But he's not wrong about how we get to” a solution, Isakson said. That path, he suggested, is that his committee keeps working with the VA. “The veterans who think they deserve that benefit ought to get it,” he insisted.

“So, I really want to set the table at this hearing with the secretary present. Thank him for giving me the time…to talk about this. And appreciate what his attitude is, about customer service being the principle foundation of his administration at the VA.”

Veteran service organizations and blue-water Navy advocates should know, Isakson continued, that this “committee and VA will tackle your problems and try and do it as fairly and equitably and as right for everybody as we can. But we are not going to get bulldozed into a corner. And we're not going to bulldoze somebody into a corner either. So, I want to bring that up because that's going to take care of a lot of questions.”

It didn't. Committee colleagues still pressed Wilkie to support H.R. 299, citing supportive language in a 2008 Institute of Medicine report and noting that Vietnam veterans in their states who served off Vietnam, have Agent Orange-related illnesses, continue to be turned down for VA care and compensation.

The closest Wilkie came to a concession was telling Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), that he had pledged to work with Isakson “to make sure that we get it right … for all of our veterans.” But Wilkie then referred to concerns raised by the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Disabled American Veterans, and Paralyzed Veterans of American that the House-passed bill would pay for blue-water Navy benefits by raising VA home loan fees, including, for the first time, imposing fees on some disabled veterans who buy higher-priced homes.

Wilkie said he agreed with those concerns. He assured Heller that Nevada veterans exposed to Agent Orange would qualify for compensation. But he didn't concede that the VA is ready to presume all blue-water Navy veterans were exposed.

Isakson interjected that Heller had missed the chairman's opening statement in which he explained the “issue of dealing with blue-water Navy is no longer going to be a question. How we do it is going to be the question.”

Pointing to Wilkie, Isakson said he “has agreed to work with us to make that happen.” Isakson gave similar assurances to four more colleagues critical of the VA's opposition to H.R. 299. Finally, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told Isakson, “I know what the conversations have been, Mr. Chairman. And I'm really looking for a somewhat less equivocal answer.”

He didn't get it, not at this hearing.

To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120 or email milupdate@aol.com