Take Care of America’s Veterans Act Stalls In Senate
Elected officials can’t seem to pass the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, and the latest Senate move has blocked the bill from advancing on the Senate floor.
Take Care of America’s Veterans Act Stalls In Senate
Senate lawmakers blocked a controversial veterans benefits bill on the Senate floor after a sharp dispute over how to pay for the expansion of benefits. Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Jerry Moran sought unanimous consent to pass the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal objected to the motion, stalling the legislation.
Moran’s bill consolidates more than 60 bipartisan proposals into a single package, including the Major Richard Star Act, which allows qualifying military retirees to receive full military retirement pay and disability compensation at the same time.
It also features the Love Lives On Act, which removes remarriage penalties for surviving military spouses, along with expanded mental health services and caregiver support.
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A Fundamental Disagreement Over Funding
The disagreement centers on how to fund the multi-billion-dollar legislation. The bill uses projected savings from proposed changes to the Department of Veterans Affairs disability rating schedule.
A plan by Doug Collins, VA, would revise rating criteria for tinnitus and obstructive sleep apnea to reduce future spending on those two conditions by approximately $ 38 billion over ten years. Moran’s proposal would take about half of those savings to fund new benefits, keeping the money within the veteran care system rather than letting it return to the Treasury.
Moran argued, according to some sources, that the Department of Veterans Affairs intends to implement the rating updates regardless of congressional action. The department announced its intention to update the rating schedule during congressional testimony earlier this year. Is this what VA Secretary Doug Collins calls putting the veteran first?
Bad Precedents
Moran claims that if Congress does not use those savings now through legislation, the money reverts to the federal Treasury and becomes unavailable to fund veteran healthcare or benefits. He told colleagues that using prospective regulatory savings provides a direct method to pass long-awaited relief for combat-injured veterans and survivors without adding to the national debt.
Blumenthal and opposing lawmakers contend that tying benefit expansions to reduced disability ratings sets a bad precedent, arguing that changing the VA evaluation criteria for tinnitus and sleep apnea reduces potential compensation for future disabled veterans.
The cost of veteran healthcare and disability benefits represents an ongoing cost of military service that Congress should fund through standard means rather than internal offsets within the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For years, veteran advocates have pushed for the repeal of the offset affecting combat-injured service members. Under current law, medically retired service members forfeit one dollar of military retirement pay for every dollar of disability compensation they would get from the Department of Veterans Affairs. The Major Richard Star Act would end that offset for over 59,000 combat-injured retirees.
Despite consensus on individual parts of the bill, the debate over financial offsets continues to prevent the law from moving forward. Neither side has yielded on how to finance them. This is an ongoing story.
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About the author
Editor-in-Chief Joe Wallace is a 13-year veteran of the United States Air Force and a former reporter/editor for Air Force Television News and the Pentagon Channel. His freelance work includes contract work for Motorola, VALoans.com, and Credit Karma. He is co-founder of Dim Art House in Springfield, Illinois, and spends his non-writing time as an abstract painter, independent publisher, and occasional filmmaker.
