SAN FRANCISCO – Many veterans are adversely impacted because they lack health insurance or are ineligible for VA health care.

Swords to Plowshares, a San Francisco-based veteran service agency, helps veterans access health care by providing free legal services to many veterans.

Swords to Plowshares delivers a variety of services to 1,500 veterans every year, 35 percent of whom are ineligible for VA health care.

Lawyers at Swords are able to intervene in many instances where a veteran is denied care. The legal team petitions to change a veteran’s military discharge status or files for a service-connected disability in order to help them access VA services.

“Despite our best efforts there still remains a category of veterans who cannot access VA health care,” said Elinor Robert, director of Legal Services at Swords to Plowshares.

A recent Harvard Medical School study highlights the population of veterans who are not entitled to VA health care due to a little known gap in the law.

Researchers found that 1.46 million veterans did not have any form of health coverage last year. Additionally, they found that 2,266 veterans died in 2008 due to lack of health insurance.

“Swords to Plowshares has a widespread impact on a number of individual veterans by helping them access VA benefits and health care, but none of that helps the systematic problem that denies an entire segment of the veteran population their VA health care,” said Roberts.

Founded in 1974, Swords to Plowshares is a community-based not-for-profit organization that provides counseling and case management, employment and training, housing and legal assistance to homeless and low-income veterans in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Swords promotes and protects the rights of veterans through advocacy, public education, and partnerships with local, state and national entities.

Learn more about the work of Swords to Plowshares, and ways in which you can help, by visiting our Web site at www.stp-sf.org .