Big changes are coming to veterans health care starting this month in what's being called the largest ever expansion.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will allow any veteran exposed to toxins and other hazards during military service to be eligible for VA health care without first having to apply for VA benefits.

That's whether they served at home or abroad.

The expansion takes effect on March 5th, which the VA says is years earlier than originally called for in the pact Act.

For the latest details, I'm joined by Dr. Shereef Elnahal.

He's New Jersey's former health commissioner and currently the undersecretary for health at the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

Well, Mr.

Undersecretary, it is excellent to have you on the show.

It's been a while since you were the commissioner here of health in New Jersey, tackling big challenges there.

What are the changes in how veterans are now going to be able to access this type of health care?

So we're really excited about this, Brianna, because we're talking about the largest health care eligibility expansion in VA history.

Literally millions of additional veterans will qualify for direct enrollment into VA health care as of Tuesday, March 5th, including any veteran deployed to serve in the Gulf War, any post-9-11 veteran deployed to any of the areas of conflict and the global war on terror to include operation Enduring Freedom, Iraqi Freedom, New Dawn, and more.

Iraq, Afghanistan and the entirety of Central Command.

On top of that, any veteran who is exposed to a toxin during their service, regardless of whether they were deployed, is also eligible to enroll for VA health care.

And that includes toxins that we know about, like burn pits, Agent Orange, contaminated water at Camp Lejeune, but also other types of substances like jet fuel, nuclear materials and otherwise that veterans could have been exposed to during their service right here domestically.

And so that, again, amounts to an additional millions of veterans who may be able to qualify for VA health care.

And we encourage you to apply as of Tuesday, March 5th.

Do you have a sense of how many veterans in New Jersey will now be part of this, this new pool?

We anticipate that tens of thousands of additional veterans in states like New Jersey will qualify, and we won't know until we get that demand signal as of Tuesday.

So this ends, of course, the phasing in of folks, which was how this was initially set out.

Does it change the process that your department is using to determine if, in fact, these are folks who participated in these activities that put them at risk?

Yes, to both.

So originally, the law called for a phased in approach every two years for veterans deployed to specific locations within Central Command at specific times.

But the president saw that we enrolled more than half a million veterans into health care just in the first year and a half after he signed the legislation.

And we wanted to make that many more veterans qualified and eligible to enroll in VA health care.

And so what that means is when they apply, they don't they no longer have to prove that they even had an exposure if they're a post-9-11 vet deployed to Central Command or a Gulf War vet deployed to the Middle East or a Vietnam vet.

This is a benefit that's been in place since the fall of 22.

No longer have to prove an exposure or even a condition associated with that exposure.

And that's a direct opportunity to enroll in VA health care.

Is there any priority given to folks who are, say, more senior?

You know, they have been veterans for quite a while.

They were unaware that they could access these benefits.

How will you prioritize the folks who will now be applying?

Well, the good news is the application turnaround time for health care in the VA is quite fast.

It's between 3 to 6 days before you get an answer.

And so we, of course, take in applications as they come.

If you apply for veterans benefits, administration benefits, we prioritize based on the urgency of the condition that you might have, etc..

But we really do have a fast turnaround for a lot of these health care applications.

And so that's why we're encouraging all of the veterans or originally going to be phased in over the next ten years to apply as of Tuesday, March 5th.

Dr. Shereef Elnahal is the undersecretary for health at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Good to see you.

Good to talk with you.

Thanks so much.

Thanks again.