Under rules to be proposed this week, the Department of Veterans Affairs plans to add Parkinson’s disease, ischemic heart disease and hairy-cell leukemia to the growing list of illnesses presumed to have been caused by Agent Orange, the toxic defoliant used widely in Vietnam.

The proposal will make it substantially easier for thousands of veterans to claim that those ailments were the direct result of their service in Vietnam, thereby smoothing the way for them to receive monthly disability checks and health care services from the department.

The new policy will apply to some 2.1 million veterans who set foot in Vietnam during the war, including those who came after the military stopped using Agent Orange in 1970. It will not apply to sailors on deep-water ships, though the department plans to study the effects of Agent Orange on the Navy.

The shift underscores efforts by the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, a retired Army chief of staff and a Vietnam veteran himself, to reduce obstacles to sick or disabled veterans’ receiving benefits. The department has come under sharp criticism from Congress and veterans groups for long delays in processing disability claims.

“Since my confirmation as secretary, I’ve often asked why, 40 years after Agent Orange was last used in Vietnam, we’re still trying to determine the health consequences to our veterans who served in the combat theater,” Mr. Shinseki said in a statement. “Veterans who endure a host of health problems deserve timely decisions.”

The veterans department already recognizes more than a dozen conditions as being presumptively connected to Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam, including Hodgkin’s disease, prostate cancer and Type 2 diabetes.

But for diseases not on that list, veterans are required to provide evidence directly relating their service in Vietnam to their illness, a requirement that often leads to application rejections and prolonged appeals.

Veterans department officials estimate that about 200,000 veterans might seek benefits under the proposed change in policy. But they said they could not estimate the cost of the change until the policy underwent public review and was published in final form, which could take several months.

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