[bill_from_tampa]

"Free" unless you have insurance, which they will then happily overbill ad infinitum. I'm a Gulf War vet, and enrolled at the VA for healthcare. My private insurance (BC/BS) has reimbursed the VA for every single thing they have done for me.

The evidence for "gulf war syndrome" is underwhelming, but that is a long discussion. The specific diagnoses that can be accepted as service connected by the VA in relation to Gulf War service are all 'mystery diseases', like fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Likewise, the links between Agent Orange and actual human illness 30-40 years later is ... tenuous. The "National Academy of Sciences" has found such links more likely than not for multiple conditions (diabetes, coronary atherosclerosis, multiple myeloma, etc) but the science backing these findings are a bit tenuous - "more likely than not" is not typically the standard of evidence required for a 'scientific finding'. But the VA is trying to 'do the right thing' and that may cost taxpayers $$$$$, but so it goes!