The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides a Medical Benefits Package, a standard enhanced health benefits plan available to all enrolled Veterans. This plan emphasizes preventive and primary care and offers a full range of outpatient and inpatient services within the VA health care system.
There is no monthly premium required to use VA care; however, Veterans may have to agree to pay copayments. If a Veteran has health insurance, it may cover the cost of co pays. VA will provide combat Veterans free medical care for any illness possibly associated with service during a period of hostility for ten years from the Veteran's release from active duty.
Veterans in Panama
The VA suspended many VA health care providers in Panama as part of a long-term fraud scheme. Notifications were sent to Veterans who may have been affected. If you were affected by this fraud, you still have access to VA health care services.
For more information on the fraud scheme in Panama, please visit: https://www.va.gov/health/foreign_medical_program_alerts.asp
- Regular Army: Active Duty
- Regular Army: Retired
- Army National Guard: Active Duty Under Title 10 USC or Title 32 USC (Full-Time National Guard Duty)
- Army National Guard: State Active Duty
- Army National Guard: Drilling
- Army National Guard: Retired
- Army Reserve: Active Duty
- Army Reserve: Drilling
- Army Reserve: Retired
The return home from combat can often leave servicemembers feeling out of place with the most important people in their lives - their families.
"In deployment, Soldiers grow accustomed to a new lifestyle and a new 'family' - those buddies that bond together to defend each other," said Maj. Ken Williams, 14th Military Police Brigade chaplain. "This lifestyle change is prolonged and becomes familiar, i.e., the new normal."
The families also change while the Soldier is deployed.
"The family is a system," Williams said. "When one family member is absent, the whole system changes. All members of the family adapt to a new 'normal' way of life."
When the servicemember returns, the family may feel uncomfortable with each other, and the servicemember may withdraw from the family.