Nevada is home to more than 200,000 veterans, and many of them chose to stay here because they trusted that the benefits they earned would follow them. When that trust breaks down — when an 81-year-old man with Parkinson's disease and a 100% disability rating gets handed a dental bill after nine teeth are removed — it shakes every veteran in this state. Robert Himschoot lives at a Boulder City veterans home and has given everything. The VA dental coverage he is legally entitled to still hasn't been paid. If it can happen to him, it can happen to any Nevada veteran.
This is not a gray area. Veterans with a 100% disability rating are entitled to VA dental benefits. The billing failure is on the federal side, but Nevada has tools and a voice. Our state can push back: through the Nevada Department of Veterans Services, through formal legislative resolutions that put pressure on VA regional leadership, and by making sure every veteran in a state-run facility has an advocate who knows how to fight these denials. Right now, veterans like Robert are navigating that fight alone, often while managing serious illness.
I'm asking you to direct the Nevada Department of Veterans Services to audit how many state-based veterans — especially those in skilled nursing and residential care — are carrying unpaid VA bills they should never have received, and to report back to the legislature with a plan to help those veterans get what they're owed.
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