VA shutdown threat averted; Congress OKs fiscal plan

The head of the nation’s largest veterans service organization praised Congress for passing a measure to fill a $3.4 billion funding gap, which threatened to close VA hospitals and clinics across the country. The “Surface Transportation and Veterans Health Care Choice Improvement Act of 2015”, H.R. 3236, passed the House by a vote of 385-34. Additionally, the legislation allows veterans living within 40 miles of a facility to make use of the Choice Card program if the facility doesn’t provide the care needed.

Lawmakers grumbled over the problem after a year of widespread dysfunction and slow progress toward reform at the VA, but moved quickly to avert a shutdown that could have affected millions of veterans.

“We’re in this situation, quite frankly, because of gross ineptitude in planning that can only be characterized as malpractice in management”, said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., ranking Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, in the moments before the vote.

Department officials said they didn’t know the extent of the shortfall until the start of the summer, but have warned for the last year that inflexible budget accounts could create such fiscal woes. “It’s a win-win. This means jobs for our veterans and helps lessen the burdens of the ACA’s employer mandate for small business owners”, added Murkowski. Under this legislation, VA will be able to pay for the expensive but essential Hepatitis C medication that veterans need.

In addition to authorizing these funds, the provision would expand veterans’ access to the current Choice Program and require the VA to devise a plan consolidating all non-VA provider programs into a single “Veterans Choice Program”.

The program would become part of the annual VA budget and cover all non-VA health care.

The bill allows the VA to transfer almost $3.5 billion from the Veterans Choice Act to pay for a huge increase in private doctor appointments for veterans. As part of the new fund, the department would be required to lay out all patient eligibility requirements, the process for authorization of care and reimbursement rates for health care outside the VA system, according to legislative documents.

“This is a commonsense, bipartisan bill that will help make sure veterans and their families aren’t left on the hook for health care expenses they’d otherwise be covered for just because they received care from the VA”, said Thompson.

VA staff at most of those facilities had manipulated patient appointment data to hide those waits – a revelation that caused the biggest scandal in department history.