Printer Friendly Page

 

---------------

P R E S S   R E L E A S E

Friday December 8, 2006

Buyer hails ‘omnibus’ bill enhancing veterans’ benefits and health care

Washington, D.C. — Working until the final hours of the 109th Congress, the House and Senate Committees on Veterans’ Affairs forged a $3.2 billion compromise “omnibus” bill, S. 3421 as amended, the Veterans Benefits, Health Care, and Information Technology Improvement Act of 2006. The bill, which passed the House today, enhances veterans’ benefits and health care, improves the ability of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to secure sensitive personal information, allows veterans to hire lawyers to represent them, and authorizes VA health care facility construction at sites nationwide.

“Congress worked in a bipartisan effort to pass this important bill and the winners are veterans and their families,” House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs Chairman Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) said. “This bill makes meaningful improvements in the VA system.”

The bill authorizes $36.8 million for advance planning of a collaboration project between the Ralph H. Johnson VA Medical Center in Charleston, S.C., and the adjacent Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). The project will ensure veterans the highest quality care in state-of-the-art facilities. It would replace aging VA and MUSC facilities with adjacent, connected facilities that would not just share clinicians as is now done, but the most expensive and advanced medical equipment. In response to the concerns voiced by veterans, the unique “veterans’ identity” of the medical center’s VA-managed facilities would be preserved.

“The enhanced collaboration envisioned in Charleston is an innovation that will serve as a national model, its design benefiting from the best minds in the public and private sectors. It will increase access to better health care for veterans today and into the future.” Buyer said.

Nationwide, veterans’ health care construction is boosted with authorization of more than $600 million for repair or replacement of flood-damaged facilities in New Orleans and elsewhere on the Gulf Coast. The bill authorizes $98 million for the replacement of the VA medical center in Denver and directs the secretary of veterans affairs to explore the viability of public-private partnerships as he moves forward there. Twenty-two other major construction projects in 15 states are authorized in the bill, which also approves continued leasing of eight medical facilities and requires VA to explore options for construction of a new medical facility in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Increased support for servicemembers returning from the war on terror includes improved VA outreach and $65 million to increase the number of clinicians treating post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and improve their training. The funds will also expand tele-health initiatives that are invaluable to rural veterans, and expand the number of community-based outpatient clinics able to treat mental illnesses. It further authorizes spending for collaboration in PTSD diagnosis and treatment between VA and the Department of Defense (DoD). Families contending with the loss of a loved one will benefit from increased access to bereavement counseling, authorized under the bill.

“Veterans undergoing blind rehabilitation, treatment for Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis, and those trying to break the cycle of homelessness will all see increased support under this legislation,” Buyer said. The bill authorizes $2 million for additional blind rehabilitation specialists and increases the number of facilities where these specialist will be located. It authorizes VA to designate six Parkinson’s Disease Research, Education, and Clinical Centers of Excellence, and at least two Multiple Sclerosis Centers of Excellence, and strengthens VA’s homeless grant and per diem programs.

Strengthening support for homeless veterans, S. 3421 as amended increases funding for housing, per diem payments and other services. It also creates a VA office of rural health and improves outreach for rural veterans. State veterans homes will now be reimbursed by VA for the costs of care provided to veterans with a 70 percent or higher service-connected condition; further, veterans in these homes with service-connected conditions rated at least 50 percent would get their medications free of charge. Increasing access to long-term care, VA will pilot a program that makes non-VA facilities such as community hospitals eligible for state veterans’ home per diem payments.

The bill includes an historic provision allowing veterans to hire an agent or attorney to represent them after a notice of disagreement has been filed. “This will afford veterans with the opportunity to have representation while protecting them from unscrupulous attorneys,” Buyer said. “I will exercise careful oversight of this new authority.”

“Veterans must have good economic opportunities in the society they defended,” Buyer said. “This bill strengthens training of the Department of Labor Disabled Veterans’ Outreach Program Specialists and provides incentive awards for government employment service officers who get results.” The bill extends work-study benefits for positions at VA cemeteries, state veterans homes, and state approving agencies until June 30, 2007; benefits had been set to expire December 27, 2006.

Eligibility is expanded for Dependants Education Assistance to the spouse or child of a servicemember hospitalized or receiving outpatient care before the servicemember’s discharge for a total and permanent service-connected disability. The provision’s intent is to help enhance the spouse’s earning power as early as possible before discharge of the servicemember.

Under current law, tribal organizations are not eligible for state cemetery grants under the State Cemetery Grants Program. This bill would authorize the VA secretary to make grants to tribal organizations to help them establish, expand, or improve veterans’ cemeteries on trust lands.

The bill contains provisions that will provide VA with additional tools to help it contract with veteran and disabled veteran-owned small businesses. “Veteran and disabled veteran-owned businesses have not been getting their fair share of federal contracts,” Buyer said. “This will allow VA to set the standard for the rest of the federal government.”

The May 3, 2006, theft of a VA employee’s laptop computer put at risk the personal data of 25.6 million veterans and 2.2 million active duty members of the Guard and Reserves. This was the government’s largest information security breach, and the second largest in the nation’s history. Reinforcing the positive impact of VA Secretary R. James Nicholson’s recent decision to centralize management of information security, the bill will help protect our veterans and servicemembers from the misuse of their sensitive personal information.

The bill directs VA to provide breach notification to individuals, reports to Congress, fraud alerts, data breach analysis, credit monitoring services and identity theft insurance. It also provides for an Information Security Education Assistance program, an incentive to allow VA the ability to recruit personnel with the information skills necessary to meet department requirements.

“I commend Senator Craig (R-Idaho) of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee and his ranking member, Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) for their willingness to work with us to produce this legislation, which is worthy of our veterans and their families,” Buyer said. I also salute my friend and departing colleague Lane Evans, with whom I worked on much of this legislation over the past two years,” Buyer said of the committee’s retiring ranking member.

“In years to come, we will look on provisions introduced in this bill as forward-looking innovations which helped ensure a strong and responsive VA system,” Buyer said.

---------------

Larry Scott