Re: Compensation of survivors

[BERNARD L COHEN <blc+@PITT.EDU>]

On Wed, 15 Aug 2001, Paul Lavely wrote:



> First, I am not sure how you compensate a person who was killed. That 

> is, the dead are beyond compensation for the loss of their life.



	--That is what I was objecting to. This new plan is to compensate

survivors. Of course the survovors may suffer from the lost earnings of

those who died prematurely, but that is far more true of the soldiers who

died at a much younger age.



> 

> Second, I believe that the US Government did pay the individual's 

> survivors with the GI insurance policy that each was provided.

> 

	--It is my understanding that the insurance had to be paid for, at

a rate appropriate if they had not been soldiers, and also that it had a

very limited maximum value. I may be wrong about this - please let me know

if I am wrong.



> Third, with some significant exceptions (such as Gulf War syndrome) 

> those who are injured while in the military or are wounded in war are 

> compensated by the VA and receive medical benefits for those injuries.

> 

	--My objection in this message was to paying survivors of those

who died. I thought there was some chance that payment to survivors could

be removed from the regulation.

	I also have reservations about payments to those who had a very

slight probability of having been injured by the exposures to low dose

radiation, but that is another story and it is probably politically

impractical to fight it at this stage. For one thing, injured soldiers are

taken care of, so the soldier argument could not be used.



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