Our veterans have put their lives on the line to defend our country. Whether in the Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force, or National Guard and Reserves, our military men and women have answered our nation’s call to service. I am strongly committed to our brave service members, veterans and their families and I will continue working in Congress to ensure that we protect, and preserve the benefits they have earned.

Recent News

On March 23rd, the President signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, making health reform the law of the land. This new law will bring greater security, health, and peace of mind to tens of millions of Americans, including our nation’s veterans. During the debate over health care reform, a lot of misinformation leaked out. I want to clarify how this new law will work for veterans. Health insurance reform does not change the TRICARE or VA benefit system in any way. There is nothing in the legislation that would change any TRICARE fees. From the beginning of the reform process, I have worked to ensure that health insurance reform will do nothing to change earned TRICARE or VA benefits for servicemen and women, veterans or their dependents. This means that those who are currently covered under TRICARE or by the VA will not be required to purchase additional coverage to comply with the new insurance mandate. In addition to passing historic health care reform that benefits all Americans, including veterans, the 111th Congress has strongly supported veterans and their needs, specifically health care needs, on every major issue throughout this Congress:

• Secured advance funding for veterans initiatives
• New GI Bill implementation
• New Agent Orange presumptions for three additional diseases
• New Gulf War Illness presumptions for nine additional diseases
• A 16% budget increase in 2010 for the Department of Veterans Affairs, that is the largest in over 30 years
• A 2011 VA budget request that increases that record budget by an additional 7.6%

Legislative Update

This year, Congress worked with veterans and military family organizations, among others, to enact the Economic Recovery Act to turn our economy around with new jobs and provide a tax credit for hiring veterans. The nation’s budget includes the largest veterans funding increase ever requested by a President. This builds on a significant record of accomplishment for veterans and troops over the last two years, including the new GI Bill of Rights for education, historic veterans funding to strengthen health care, progress in improving our veterans hospitals and facilities and improving care for those with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Traumatic Brain Injury, and increases in other benefits for our troops and military families.

But this is just the start. Congress is working to:

• Assure timely and reliable veterans funding;
• Strengthen support for military families, both while their loved ones are deployed and when they return home;
• Expand the New GI Bill to children of fallen service members; and,
• Provide troops and veterans with the quality health care that they need.

Veteran's Funding

Timely and reliable veterans funding: the President signed into law the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act (H.R. 1016), to authorize Congress to approve Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical care appropriations one year in advance of the start of each fiscal, and requires the President to request those funds one year in advance. This will ensure reliable and timely funding to support the delivery of high quality medical care for our veterans -- providing time for the VA to plan how to deliver the best care to an increasing number of veterans with increasingly complex medical conditions. This measure has the support of over 40 groups, including the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, AMVETS, Disabled American Veterans and the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, with many calling it “an historic legislative victory on behalf of all veterans.”

FY 2009 Supplemental Appropriations

Extended GI Benefits: Allows the extension of the 21st Century GI Bill of Rights college education benefits to children of members of the armed forces who die while on active duty.

Stop Loss: Provides over 185,000 service members who have had their enlistments involuntarily extended since September 11, 2001 with $500 per month for every month they were held under stop-loss orders.

Defense Health & Military Family Support: $1.8 billion for defense health and programs to support military families, including:

• $708 million for family advocacy programs, which provide military families with access to child psychologists, child care, financial counseling and other support to help them cope with the disruption and stress common with military life;
• $75 million for Traumatic Brain Injury and Psychological Health Research, and
• $20 million for rehabilitation equipment for state of the art care for wounded warriors.

Equipment for the Troops: Provides $25.8 billion for equipment used by our service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $500 million for National Guard and Reserve equipment and $4.5 billion for lightweight Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles to protect our forces and provide a vehicle suited to the terrain and poor roads in Afghanistan.

Wounded Warrior Support: Supports the construction of nine wounded warrior support complexes to help soldiers wounded in combat recover and remain on active duty or transition to civilian life and support families through this process.

Military Hospitals/Walter Reed: Invests $488 million in military hospital construction to renovate hospitals that are decades old and do not meet current standards for medical care. Also includes investments to complete the construction of Walter Reed National Military Medical Center at Bethesda, including a Warrior Transition Center, and the Fort Belvoir, VA, Community Hospital.

Child Care Facilities: Provides for the construction of twenty-five new child development centers at military bases, which will provide care for an additional 5,000 kids.

FY 2010 Defense Authorization

Military Pay Raise: Authorizes a pay raise of 3.4%, an increase of 0.5% above the budget request, as the Congress has done over the last two years.

Military Housing: Provides nearly $2.2 billion for family housing programs and requires DOD to review the current standards used to calculate the monthly rates for basic allowance for housing.

Caregivers for Wounded Warriors: Enables seriously injured service members to use a non-medical attendant for help with daily living or during travel for medical treatment.

Mental Health: Strengthen DOD efforts to expand mental health care for troops -- by providing by increasing the number of military mental health providers, providing DOD scholarships to students pursuing mental health-related degrees, and requiring a medical examination before a service member who has been deployed overseas and diagnosed with either PTSD or TBI can be involuntarily separated.

Expand Health Care for Reservists: Expands TRICARE health coverage to reserve component members and their families for 180 days prior to mobilization, instead of just 90 days.

Ban Health Care Fee Increases: Retroactively prohibits fee increases on TRICARE inpatient care for one year. The Defense Department recently announced TRICARE fee increases, including a $110-a-day increase in inpatient hospitalization charges for military retirees and their families.

Enhance Spousal Job Opportunities: Establishes an internship pilot program for military spouses to obtain employment with federal agencies to provide them with opportunities in careers that are portable as they move from military station to station.

Strengthen Military Readiness: Increases investments to restock critically needed military equipment for the Army, Marine Corps and the National Guard and Reserve. Increases the size of the military -- by 30,000 Army troops, 8,100 Marines, 14,650 Air Force personnel, and 2,477 Navy sailors in Fiscal Year 2010.

Veterans Funding

FY 2010 Investments: The FY 2010 Military Construction VA Appropriations bill contains $108.9 billion in overall funding level, $14.5 billion above 2009, for veterans medical care, claims processors, and facility improvements. To provide quality health care for our 5 million veterans, this bill provides $53 billion in discretionary funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs for FY 2010 -- $5.4 billion more than fiscal year 2009 non-emergency appropriations. This includes $4.6 billion for mental health services and investments to reduce the backlog of veterans benefit claim. This year’s budget increase is on top of the unprecedented increase of $17.7 billion provided over the last two years.

Advanced Funding for FY 2011: The Military Construction-VA Appropriations bill includes $48.2 billion in advance appropriations for fiscal year 2011 for three medical accounts: medical services, medical support and compliance, and medical facilities. This is an 8 percent increase over FY 2010 and will provide reliable and timely funding to support the delivery of medical care.

Other Recent Veterans/Troops Initiatives

Women’s Veterans Health: The House has passed the Women Veterans Health Care Improvement Act (H.R. 1211), to expand and improve VA health care services for the 1.8 million women who have bravely served their country. It calls for a study of barriers to women veterans seeking health care, assessment of women’s health care programs, medical care for newborn children of women veterans, enhancement of VA sexual trauma programs, enhancement of PTSD treatment for women, establishment of a pilot program for child care services, and the addition of recently separated women veterans to serve on advisory committees.