House GOP cancels VA overhaul vote again

House Republicans for the second time postponed consideration of a measure overhauling veterans’ benefits and Veterans Affairs Department operations, reportedly due to some GOP members’ concerns regarding a plan to offset the cost of some benefit increases by reducing those associated with two of the most common service-connected disabilities.

The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (H.R. 9237) is 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 VA disability benefits.

But Democrats have decried the measure as an effort to take the sails out of an ongoing discharge petition to force a House vote on the Star Act on its own. Packaged with the aforementioned benefit increases are roughly $60 billion in cuts, particularly to disability benefits associated with sleep apnea and tinnitus, as well as plans to further privatize veterans’ health care and reduce the collective bargaining rights of VA psychologists.

Despite narrowly defeating a motion to send the bill back to committee by a 211-210 vote, House leaders postponed final consideration of the measure, the second time since last month. According to Punchbowl News, House Speaker Mike Johnson blamed “misinformation” for the holdup and said he would bring the measure back up for consideration in September.

During floor debate Thursday, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., argued that the Trump administration would soon move forward with regulations, first proposed under the Biden administration, to potentially reduce sleep apnea and tinnitus benefits later this year. Without passing the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, those benefit cuts would go back to the U.S. Treasury rather than be reinvested, he said.

“This is moving forward regardless,” Bost said. “The question is whether the savings associated with the changes by the VA should remain in their control and the bureaucrats’ control, or do we use our Article I power to reinvest it into veterans and their families.”

Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., questioned the provenance of the news, which broke Wednesday, that the VA would indeed move forward with a plan to change how the VA compensates veterans suffering from hearing loss or sleep apnea. The Biden administration all but abandoned its proposal due to backlash from veterans’ groups, he said, and VA spokesman Quinn Slaven told Government Executive last month that changes were neither “planned or imminent,” and that the original regulatory proposal would need “significant changes” before finalization.

Takano also took issue with Bost’s contention that no current veterans would see their benefits slashed. Although the proposed changes to sleep apnea and tinnitus benefits would not impact veterans who have already received a disability rating associated those conditions, it would impact current soldiers, as well as any veteran who applies for an additional disability benefit.

“[Bost] has been very specific that this bill . . . would not impair current veterans, but I’m not sure if the chairman fully understands how disability benefits, how the system works,” Takano said. “[The] bill can and will lead to cuts for those who already have service-connected disability ratings for sleep apnea or tinnitus. This is because any time a veteran applies for a rating increase or for a new rating for some other condition, the VA can and does review previous ratings, sometimes even lowering them.”

Bost also argued the offsets were necessary in order for the bill to be taken up by the Senate, as the Major Richard Star Act has stalled for years in Congress in part due to its high price tag.

“We’ve sat and looked at these over and over and again,” he said. “We’ve also passed some of these bills but sent them over to the Senate to die because they don’t have an offset.”

But Democrats said appeals to fiscal responsibility ring hollow as House leaders prep $95 billion in supplemental funding to go toward President Trump’s war with Iran. Takano and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., proposed that, instead of changing sleep apnea and tinnitus benefits, Congress should simply earmark $57 billion in already appropriated but unspent Defense Department funds from last year’s budget reconciliation law to cover the cost.

“It is clear Republicans do not have the support they need to pass the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act because of their unacceptable and unconscionable proposal to cut benefits for disabled veterans,” Blumenthal said in statement Thursday. “It is equally clear there is bipartisan momentum behind the Blumenthal-Takano proposal to use unobligated and unspent Department of Defense funds to cover the costs of this bill. There are other viable ways to pay for this legislation, and Republican leaders must now come to the table to engage in meaningful bipartisan discussions about the path forward.”