A triumvirate of Senate and House leaders introduced the Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act (H.R. 8371) this week in a bid to reform and improve healthcare, benefits, and services for veterans, their families, and their survivors.
It was introduced by U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Jon Tester (D-MT), along with U.S. Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL). They took aim at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), long criticized for its spending habits, delivery of health care to veterans and massive backlogs, among other things. While many attempts at revamping it over the years have occurred under both sides of the aisle, none have quite seemed to nail down a satisfactory fix.
“In the past few years, we’ve done right by veterans by passing critical legislation like the PACT Act, but there’s still work to be done to ensure we’re fully honoring our commitment to them and their families,” Tester, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said. “That starts with improving the health care and benefits they earned, and I’m proud to have helped negotiate this bipartisan veterans’ package on behalf of veterans in Montana and across the nation. By improving veterans’ access to the care they need, bolstering long-term care options and assistance for homeless veterans, strengthening life-saving mental health services, and increasing transparency and oversight of VA’s new Electronic Health Record program, this package is a common sense step towards delivering veterans and their families the kind of support they earned and deserve.”
The legislation would approach this from several angles. For one thing, it would implement a three-year pilot program to determine the efficacy of giving veterans access to assisted living for long-term care needs. It would also improve support for veteran caregivers – including mental health support – advance a new staffing model for the VA and increase accountability measures there, among other measures.
“Since I became Chairman, I have long said that the men and women who have served and sacrificed for our nation have earned a VA that works with them – not against them,” Bost, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, said. “Over the past year and a half, we have listened to veterans and stakeholders to find the gaps within VA’s services and consider commonsense legislation to improve them where we can. The bipartisan bill from my friend from Arizona, the Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act, is a product of that work.”
The bill was named for former U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), who served in the Senate from 2003 through 2009 and worked for numerous presidential administrations before that. The legislation honors Dole’s work providing support and resources for veterans and caregivers through her career and after her retirement.
The legislation won support from a wide range of more than two dozen organizations outside of the halls of Congress, including veteran organizations like The American Legion and National PACE Association, homelessness prevention groups like the New England Center and VET-TEC education training providers like the VET TEC Working Group.