The Justice for ALS Veterans Act of 2025 will extend Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) benefits to surviving spouses of Veterans who die from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), regardless of how long the Veteran lived with the disease.
The current policy unintentionally excludes the spouses of Veterans living with ALS, despite the fact they cared for a Veteran who had a service-connected disability that was rated totally disabling. Their exclusion is because people typically only live for 2-5 years following their ALS diagnosis. The current policy states that the Veteran must have lived for 8 years with the disease in order for spouses to receive the additional DIC compensation. This leaves many surviving spouses who lost their loved one to a rapidly progressing neurodegenerative disease ineligible for the DIC kicker—the same spouses who may have left their jobs to take care of a loved one as they progressively lost muscle control and relied heavily on their caregiver to stay alive.
To correct this injustice, join I AM ALS in amending the current regulations to automatically qualify the spouses of Veterans who have died from ALS for DIC kicker by writing to congress now.