The chairmen of the House and Senate committees on Veterans Affairs announced an agreement on Monday to address the crisis of long medical care waits for veterans and improve the culture at the VA after it was found to have manipulated data.
The agreement between Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Jeff Miller (R-FL) would spend $17 billion on the Department of Veterans Affairs in the coming years, $5 billion of which will be offset from within the VA budget, the lawmakers said.
“It goes without saying: we have a VA that is in crisis today. This agreement will go a long way to helping resolve the crisis,” Miller said at a joint press conference.
The legislation provides $10 billion to help veterans who live 40 miles or more from a VA facility to receive care from a private doctor or facility.
“This bill makes certain that we address the immediate crisis of veterans being forced onto long waiting lists for health care,” Sanders said. “It strengthens the VA so that it will be able to hire the doctors, nurses and medical personnel it needs so we can permanently put an end to the long waiting lists.”
Sanders announced numerous other VA changes in the deal, designed to improve care delivery to veterans who experienced sexual trauma while in the military, broaden the John David Fry Scholarship to apply to spouses of veterans who died while serving, permit all veterans to qualify for the GI bill after 9/11 and continue an expiring program to provide housing for veterans who underwent a traumatic brain injury.
Garry Augustine, the executive director of the advocacy group Disabled American Veterans, called the deal “a promising first step to rebuild VA’s capacity and provide all enrolled veterans with timely, high-quality health care.”
The agreement is a breakthrough after the two sides spent part of last week sniping at each other amid gridlock. It is now crunch time for Congress, which has just four working days left before adjourning for a five-week summer recess. Veterans groups have put enormous pressure on lawmakers to fix systemic problems with the VA.
Now the bill has to pass the full House and Senate. It could be a difficult sell for House Republicans because it includes $12 billion in new spending. Miller expressed optimism that the House would approve it.
