Trump wants veterans to lose benefits as soon as their PTSD symptoms are treated. There is a problem with this.

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During a troop surge in Iraq, I learned how to constantly scan for threats, how to distinguish the sharp crack of a gunshot pointed in my direction from one directed at the enemy, and the myriad of ways explosives can be hidden on roadsides. I learned that hypervigilance can be the difference between life and death. I haven’t learned how to turn it off.

Now, I take three psychiatric medications every day, and I go to therapy every week. Over the course of 15 years it has taken a lot of work, but now I am mostly functional. I raise my kids, go to work, and be a part of my community. And I am among the nearly 5 million American veterans who receive service-connected disability compensation, of which approx a quarter They have a mental health condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder as their primary disability. That compensation is not charity, but compensation for loss in service and recognition that the government owes a debt when the body is broken when the service is demanded. and brains.

But now, under a new interim rule issued by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, the fact that medication helps me can also be used to reduce my disability compensation. The rule directs the VA to rate disabilities based on how veterans do with medication and treatment, rather than the underlying severity of their condition. Essentially, if the pills work, the good work lives on; Now proceed without compensation for implied disability.

This issue was actually litigated very recently. Last year, the Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims ruled Ingram v. CollinsA case which reaffirmed the rule expressed earlier Jones v. Shinseki. The court was clear: When the VA criteria for treatment do not expressly mention drug-based improvements as a reason for discontinuing disability benefits, the VA must discount the effects of the drug and evaluate the disability as it would exist without the treatment. That was not a radical interpretation but a straightforward application of the law. Treatment may mask the symptoms, but it does not eliminate the damage. In response, the VA’s new rule emphasizes a blanket policy that only considers conditions that present during treatment, essentially penalizing veterans like me for working to stay alive.

The consequences of this change are not abstract. Peer-reviewed research and VA data show that disability compensation is directly linked to real-life stability for veterans with mental health conditions. A long-term study of veterans who applied for PTSD disability benefits found that those who received benefits experienced a meaningful reduction in PTSD symptoms over a decade, compared to veterans who were denied. Those receiving compensation were much less likely to experience poverty, at around 15 percent, compared to 45 percent of those denied benefits, and their risk of homelessness was about half that of denied veterans. Years later, these differences in socio-economic stability persisted, albeit with continued weakness. Compensation doesn’t erase trauma, but it gives veterans the resources to manage it and live with it.

I personally know the stakes. The medicine I took did not heal the pain. When I stopped my medication, the symptoms worsened. I find myself in a dark place where I think the IED with my name on it that I’ve always been scanning for would have been better if it actually went off and killed me. I have buried many friends whose treatment did not work. Their medications stabilized them, and their therapy helped them, but the underlying hurt remained. Now they have committed suicide.

This is the reason Ingram important It recognized that improvement through treatment should not invalidate evidence of injury. Symptoms managed by medication are still symptoms, and the underlying disability remains. VA’s interim rule rejects this principle, allowing improved work to justify the denial of disability status.

The moral and legal rationale for reparations is clear: it’s not just about whether a veteran can work. It’s about acknowledging the permanent loss of quality of life that has come as a result of their injury. For example, in a civil context, when construction workers fall from scaffolding and are unable to walk until they receive surgery and physical therapy, their employers must provide them with workers’ compensation. It doesn’t matter if treatment can return them to full function and they can eventually return to work. Injured at work, the company must pay compensation. “You break it, you buy it.” But for the Trump administration, despite its lavish spending on tax breaks for billionaires, military contracts, and increases in Immigration and Customs Enforcement that have torn the country apart, properly compensating veterans for their well-being at the behest of the government is a waste of money we don’t deserve.

The Trump administration’s interim administration fundamentally misunderstands both the law and the human cost of war. Correction does not equal cure, and action does not erase harm. VA disability compensation is not a paycheck. It’s a recognition of veterans’ lives that will never be the same and a resource to help them pick up the pieces. The fact that symptoms can be controlled with daily maintenance medications is proof that the injury is permanent and serious, and that medication alone can make it go away. The law once recognized that difference, and basic decency still should.