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VA Caregiver Benefit Not for All

Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.
Chris O'Meara
/
The Florida Channel
Leon County Judge John Cooper on June 30, 2022, in a screen grab from The Florida Channel.

Thanks to a federal program, Chris Ott of Tampa gets a stipend of about $2,000 per month to stay home and care for her son, a Marine veteran who was paralyzed and nearly blinded in the war in Iraq, the Associated Press reports. The rules of the program allow caregiver stipends only for injuries that occurred since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The Department of Veterans Affairs says expanding the program to other veterans would be fair, but also extremely costly. 

Originally founded in December 2006 as an independent grassroots publication dedicated to coverage of health issues in Florida, Health News Florida was acquired by WUSF Public Media in September 2012.