Jon Stewart blasts Congress over veterans healthcare protections’: ‘When is America going to start acting like the great country we tell ourselves we are?’

Stewart has also campaigned for healthcare protections for 9/11 first responders

Jon Stewart has delivered a blistering address on healthcare protections for veterans, accusing Congress of giving former service members “the cold shoulder”.

The former late-night host spoke at the US Capitol in Washington, DC on Tuesday. He has been a vocal advocate for 9/11 first responders. This latest action focuses on veterans who were stationed overseas and may have resulting health conditions.

“Welcome to another exciting episode of ‘When is America going to start acting like the great country we keep telling ourselves we are?’” he said.

Stewart remembered being in DC location a year ago, “after a 15-year battle” for healthcare protections for 9/11 first responders.

Advocates, as well as “all the first responders and survivors and victims” visited DC “over and over and over again, sick and dying, walking the halls of Congress just to get them to recognise the basic humanity of what they were dealing with, that their selflessness and heroism had put them in harm’s way and they had been sick”, Stewart said.

“And when it was done, we thought it was done,” he added. “But it turns out that the war fighters that were sent to prosecute the battle based on the attack on 9/11 now suffer the same injuries and illnesses that the first responders suffered from, and they’re getting the same cold shoulder from Congress that they received."

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and Congressman Raul Ruiz have pushed for legislation that would support veterans with conditions stemming from burn pit and other toxic exposures. Stewart was alongside Gillibrand and Ruiz for the announcement of the proposed bill on Tuesday.

According to a report by the US Department of Veterans Affairs, 3.5m veterans  may have been exposed to burn pits in Iraq or Afghanistan. 

“War after war after war, we treat them as expendable," Stewart told The Washington Post of veterans. "And when they come home, we’re done with them. If an enemy did this to us, we’d … bomb them into oblivion. We did it to ourselves and we’re ignoring it.”