As opposition mounts, House cancels vote on VA overhaul bill

House Republicans on Thursday gaveled floor activity for the week, effectively cancelling a planned vote on a controversial Veterans Affairs Department overhaul bill that packages bipartisan benefits increases with cuts to others and increased privatization of health services.

The House planned this week to debate and ultimately vote on the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (H.R. 9237), a collection of more than 60 bills related to the VA and veteran care, including benefits increases for severely disabled veterans and the families of service members who died in the line of duty. Its centerpiece is the Major Richard Star Act (H.R. 2102), a bill that would allow veterans who were forced to retire early due to a combat injury to collect their full military retirement pay in addition to their VA disability benefits.

But Democrats warned at a press conference Thursday that the larger bill is an effort to “hijack” the Major Richard Star Act, which has more than 300 House sponsors and a discharge petition just five signatures short of forcing a floor vote, and anchor it with $60 billion in cuts to other veterans’ benefits, like those associated with tinnitus and sleep apnea, alongside plans to further prioritize veterans’ health care and abridge VA psychologists’ collective bargaining rights.

“This bill pits veterans against veterans,” said Rep. Chris Deluzio, D-Pa. “I think it stabs those serving right now in the back, many of whom are currently fighting a war. When it comes time for them to apply for their benefits for conditions linked to their service, they will see those benefits cut . . . The same politicians who added nearly $5 trillion to our national debt to pay for tax giveaways to the rich and powerful, who cut health care to help pay for those tax giveaways, now want to force other veterans to pay for these very important VA benefits increases.”

Rep. Raul Ruiz, D-Calif., also noted that the version of the Major Richard Star Act within the Republicans’ megabill is watered down compared to the standalone version of the measure. This new iteration implements a cap that would prevent impacted veterans from receiving both their retirement and disability benefits in full.

“They claim this fixes the wounded veterans tax, but it doesn’t,” he said. “It creates a cap in the amount of benefits they can get so they cannot get their full medical benefits and retirement benefits together. They’re nickeling and diming our veterans, our wounded warriors, while they’re at the same time proposing $500 billion to pay for the Iran war. And it takes away PACT Act benefits from 1.5 million veterans to pay for it.”

Veterans groups zeroed in on the dangers of how the bill “rewrites” benefits associated with service-connected tinnitus and sleep apnea. The VA first floated changing how it compensates veterans suffering from those conditions during the Biden administration, but advocates argued that process is governed by medical and scientific analysis, not “politics.”

“Once Congress starts rewriting the disability ratings whenever it needs money, there’s no limit,” said Jess Finucan, director of policy and advocacy for Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “Today it’s ‘just’ tinnitus and sleep apnea. Tomorrow, will it be PTSD? Will Congress decide that taking care of veterans suffering from the long-term effects of toxic exposures suddenly isn’t worth the price tag?”

And Craig Romanovich, executive director of the Union Veterans Council, who himself suffers from “severe” tinnitus, said these conditions contribute to other medical conditions—by defanging coverage of hearing loss and sleep apnea, Congress would make it harder to qualify for benefits under those knock-on disabilities as well.

“There is a constant ringing in my ears—it’s ringing right now,” he said. “It deprives me of my sleep, it causes anxiety and depression, and it causes issues in my family. These are the hard truths of something I live with every single day of my life . . . These are all secondary issues to tinnitus. If this goes through and you can no longer claim tinnitus, now you will have to fight for all of those secondary conditions on their own merits, making it much harder to get compensation and care.”

Labor leaders warned that the Republican bill’s changes to the Veterans Community Care Program, the initiative by which veterans can receive VA-sponsored medical care from private sector providers, could serve as the “tipping point” toward privatization, funneling money away from VA facilities and thereby causing service deterioration which in turn would fuel more privatization.

“This pushes us farther down a dangerous road, one that speeds up privatization of the VA,” said American Federation of Government Employees National President Everett Kelley. “It locks in biased standards that VA facilities must meet, while holding private providers to no such standards . . . This is not strengthening the VA, it is hollowing the VA out.”