December 22, 2006
President signs $3.2 billion bill enhancing veterans’ benefits and health care
Washington, D.C. — President Bush today signed legislation that will improve benefits and health care for America’s veterans and their families along a broad front. The legislation, S. 3421, the Veterans Benefits, Healthcare, and Information Technology Act of 2006, was pushed through the U.S. House of Representatives in the final days of the 109th Congress by Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.).
Passed by the House on December 8, the legislation includes $3.2 billion in funding to enhance veterans’ benefits and health care, secure sensitive personal information and authorize VA health care facility construction nationwide. Included in the legislation is $36.8 million for advance planning of a collaboration project between the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston, S.C., and the adjacent Medical University of South Carolina.
“This legislation is for the veterans returning home today, and those who served in the past,” Buyer said. “From expanded health care benefits, to improved information technology, and the construction of medical centers across the country, the passage of this legislation is a tribute to the sacrifice of America’s veterans.”
The legislation includes increased support for servicemembers returning from the war on terror, improved VA outreach, and $65 million to increase the number of clinicians treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The funds also expand tele-health initiatives invaluable to rural veterans and increase the number of community-based outpatient clinics able to treat mental illnesses. It further authorizes spending for collaboration in PTSD diagnosis and treatment between VA and the Department of Defense. Families contending with the loss of a loved one will benefit from increased access to bereavement counseling, authorized under the bill.
The May 3, 2006, theft of a VA employee’s laptop computer put at risk the personal data of more than 25 million veterans and 2.2 million active duty members of the Guard and Reserves. This was the government’s largest information security breach, and the second largest in the nation’s history. Responding to congressional oversight, VA has since centralized its management of information technology and security systems.
The enacted legislation includes provisions to further protect veterans and servicemembers from the misuse of their sensitive personal information. The bill directs VA to provide breach notification to individuals, reports to Congress, fraud alerts, data breach analysis, credit monitoring services and identity theft insurance. It also provides for an Information Security Education Assistance program, an incentive to allow VA the ability to recruit personnel with the information skills necessary to meet department requirements.
“Nearly a decade of committee oversight, including 16 hearings, is paying off with Secretary Nicholson’s commendable decision to centralize the management of VA’s information technology and security systems,” Buyer said.
Nationwide, veterans’ health care construction is boosted with authorization of more than $600 million for repair or replacement of flood-damaged facilities in New Orleans and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. Twenty-two major construction projects across the country are also authorized in the bill, which also approves continued leasing of eight medical facilities and requires VA to explore options for construction of a medical facility in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
The legislation also creates a VA office of rural health and improves outreach for rural veterans. State veterans homes will now be reimbursed by VA for the costs of care provided to veterans with a 70 percent or higher service-connected condition; further, veterans in these homes with service-connected conditions rated at least 50 percent would get their medications free of charge. Increasing access to long-term care, VA will pilot a program that makes non-VA facilities such as community hospitals eligible for state veterans’ home per diem payments.
Eligibility is expanded for Dependants Education Assistance to the spouse or child of a servicemember hospitalized or receiving outpatient care before the servicemember’s discharge for a total and permanent service-connected disability. The provision’s intent is to help enhance the spouse’s earning power as early as possible before discharge of the servicemember.
Also included in the bill are provisions that will provide VA with additional tools to help it contract with veteran and disabled veteran-owned small businesses.
“Veteran and disabled veteran-owned businesses have not been getting their fair share of federal contracts,” Buyer said. “This will allow VA to set the standard for the rest of the federal government.”