Mikulski Announces Passage of Veterans Omnibus Legislation

Honoring America’s Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act expands, improves critical health care and housing programs for veterans

July 20, 2012

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), a member of the Senate Veterans Jobs Caucus and the Senate Military Families Caucus, today announced the unanimous Senate passage of the Honoring America's Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012.   

The comprehensive legislation combines provisions of the Veterans Programs Improvement Act of 2011 and the Honoring American Veterans Act of 2011 to extend health care to veterans and their families who lived at Camp Lejeune from 1957 to 1987, expand critical health care programs, improve housing programs, enhance programs for homeless veterans and make improvements to the disability claims system.  

"Whether supporting overseas operations or standing sentry on the home front, America's veterans have been there for us," Senator Mikulski said. "We have a sacred commitment to honor promises made to them when they signed up to fight for us. That's why I am so proud that we were able to come together and pass this legislation to give our brave men and women in uniform the care and support they deserve when they come home."

The Honoring America's Veterans and Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act would:  

·         Expand critical health care programs for veterans. This bill will authorize VA to waive copayments for tele-health and telemedicine visits of veterans, expand beneficiary travel reimbursement for veterans living in highly rural areas and improve reimbursement for state veterans homes. In addition, the bill will enhance VA's tele-consultation and telemedicine capabilities to improve rural veterans' access to quality health care and expand TBI services. The legislation will also help protect veterans from sexual assault and other safety incidents.

·         Enhance Specially Adapted Housing programs for disabled veterans. This bill expands the eligibility for VA's specially adapted housing assistance grants to certain veterans with disabilities due to the loss or loss of use of one or more lower extremities that preclude ambulating without the aid of a supporting device. This bill authorizes increased assistance to those disabled veterans who reside temporarily with family members and indexes levels of such assistance on an annual basis. The bill also provides adaptive housing assistance grants to veterans with a lesser degree of vision impairment than what is required by current law.

·         Improve efforts to eliminate homelessness among veterans. This bill will reauthorize a number of VA's programs to help homeless veterans and will expand eligibility for VA's emergency shelter services to include homeless veterans who are not seriously mentally ill. In addition, the bill enhances grant programs for homeless veterans with special needs, by including dependents of veterans and male veterans with dependent children. The bill also improves the grant and per diem program, which serves upward of 30,000 homeless veterans annually, by requiring VA to report on how to improve the per diem payment process for grantees. In addition, the bill strengthens efforts by eligible entities to assist in case management services provided to the nearly 40,000 homeless veterans participating in the HUD-VASH program.

·         Strengthen veterans' benefits and improving claims processing. This bill will improve VA's disability claims appeal processing by waiving initial review of claimants' new evidence by the agency of original jurisdiction unless specifically requested. It is estimated that this provision could prevent approximately 1,600 remands from the Board of Veterans' Appeals per year allowing the Board more time to address the backlog of appeals. Other significant improvements include, improving the process of filing jointly for social security and dependency and indemnity compensation and clarifying the month of death payment provisions to ensure surviving spouses receive proper and timely benefit payments.