The CBO suggested that increasing Tricare enrollment fees for working-age retirees — those under age 65 — could help slash the deficit by $12.6 billion. To obtain this, it said, the Defense Department should more than double annual enrollment fees for individuals and families enrolled in Tricare Prime and institute annual fees of $485 for an individual and $970 for a family for Tricare Select. Most working-age retirees currently pay no enrollment fees for Tricare Select.
Another option would be to introduce minimum out-of-pocket requirements for those using Tricare for Life. In this proposal, TFL would not cover any of the $750 of cost-sharing payments under Medicare and would cover just 50 percent of the next nearly $7,000.
According to the CBO, the Department of Veterans Affairs also presents several opportunities for cost-savings measures. Some suggestions in the CBO assessment include:
1)Narrowing eligibility for disability compensation for seven diseases the Government
Accountability Office has said are not caused or aggravated by military service, including
arteriosclerotic heart disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Crohn’s disease,
hemorrhoids, multiple sclerosis, osteoarthritis, and uterine fibroids. This option would save
$33 billion over 10 years.
2)Ending the VA’s individual unemployability payments to disabled veterans when they turn 67, the
retirement age for receiving full Social Security benefits, which would save an estimated $48
billion.
3) Reducing disability benefits to veterans older than 67 who are receiving Social Security
payments. This could save the government $11 billion.
4)Eliminating disability compensation for 1.3 million veterans with disability rates below 30
percent, saving $38 billion over an eight-year period.

How many times have you heard the media state that there are XXnumber of veterans either in Congress or working as Congressional staff members? In an article by Leo Shange on January 10, 2019 fewer than 2 percent of congressional staffers have served in the military, despite years of warning from advocates about the need to include veterans’ perspective in policy work and pledges from lawmakers to help separating service members find work. The number of veterans elected to Congress this session dropped to under 100, the lowest level since before World War II. But that still equates to about 18 percent of legislators being veterans, far above the staffer levels.

Veterans are more likely to commit suicide than nonveterans and younger veterans are most at risk according to VA data. Veterans (and acitve military) who deployed to the Gulf War, Iraq, and Afghanistan have deployed more than 2 times and this may be 1 reason for the increase in suicides. Vietnam veterans have often said that being in combat creates “wounds that don’t bleed” and if a veteran talked about his/her experiences, most would never believe them.

Meet the June deadline to end the Choice Program as we know it and have the new community care program up and running. This means VA will be using new, simpler access standards for veterans to get care in thecommunity, including access to new walk-in services for urgent care using retail providers.
Certify a new caregiver IT tracking system to better manage the care and services delivered through VA. The secretary must notify Congress by October that he has certified the system and that it is in place before the current program of comprehensive caregiver support services can move forward and be expanded over the next two years to veterans of all eras.
Certify a new caregiver IT tracking system to better manage the care and services delivered through VA. The secretary must notify Congress by October that he has certified the system and that it is in place before the current program of comprehensive caregiver support services can move forward and be expanded over the next two years to veterans of all eras.

On January 3, 2019, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Ranking Member, Dr. Phil Roe (TN), introduced H.R. 203, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019. On January 8, 2019, House Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman, Mark Takano (CA), introduced H.R. 299, the Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019.

Nearly identical legislation was approved in the House last year by a vote of 382 to 0. Unfortunately, the legislation was not approved by the Senate so it must be approved again by the new 116th Congress.

Both bills would expand the presumptions for service connection related to exposure to herbicides containing dioxin, including Agent Orange, to veterans who served in the territorial seas of the Republic of Vietnam during the Vietnam War.

Veterans who served on ships in the waters off shore of Vietnam are arbitrarily and unjustly denied benefits of the presumption of exposure, and thereby are ineligible for presumption of service connection for herbicide-related disabilities. These bills would correct that injustice.

DAV strongly supports H.R. 203 and H.R. 299 and both bills are in accord with DAV Resolution No. 033.

Please use the prepared electronic letter or draft your own to urge your Representative to support and cosponsor H.R. 203 and H.R. 299. As always, we appreciate your support for DAV and your grassroots activism in participating in DAV CAN. Thank you for all you do for America’s veterans and their families.

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Lawmakers from both parties cautioned the Veterans Affairs Department to tread carefully in enacting a law President Trump signed last year to give more veterans access to private sector health care, suggesting the current trajectory could sabotage the entire program.
VA is actively seeking to address potential pitfalls through its negotiations with potential contractors that will make up the “community care network,” Secretary Robert Wilkie told a joint, bicameral congressional committee on Wednesday. Criticisms came from an array of sources, most of whom voted to approve the MISSION Act last year.
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and a cosponsor of the Mission Act, said he has “grown increasingly concerned” about the law since it sailed through Congress last year. He accused VA of going down a “different road” than it was just six months ago with regard to its implementation. He suggested VA is now considering a complete outsourcing of certain procedures and appointments, as well as giving veterans carte blanche to pursue private care outside of VA based on “arbitrary” wait times or distance from a VA facility. One of the main tenets of the new law was to move away from such metrics for determining eligibility for outside care, Tester said.

Congress was able to send several bills to the president before it concluded the 115th Congress. These included:
• S. 2248, a miniature omnibus package, which improves programs for homelessness veterans, transition assistance, veteran-owned small businesses, student veterans, and also includes the SIT-REP Act, which would protect student veterans from penalties due to delayed GI Bill payments.
• S. 3777, Forever GI Bill Housing Payment Fulfillment Act of 2018, which will require VA to set up a team to plan and schedule dates for when student veterans who were impacted by GI Bill payment problems will receive their corrected housing payments.
• S. 3661, which requires DOD to conduct a program to commemorate the 75th Anniversary of WWII and support programs sponsored by veterans organizations and local governments. • S. 2679, Veterans Small Business Enhancement Act, which enables veteran-owned small businesses to participate in the Federal Surplus Property Donation Program.

For the final few months of 2018, Republican lawmakers have built and rebuilt legislation to expand or extend provisions and fix certain flaws in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which was signed into law by President Donald Trump on December 22, 2017. The marquee legislation was widely celebrated as a massive victory for businesses, investors, and taxpayers. But these attempts to tweak the law show there are some ongoing issues. The House, by way of House Ways and Means Committee Chair Kevin Brady (R-TX), has now put forth three different versions of a tax extender and reform bill. With each new version comes a new cost estimate. According to Brady, the latest might cost $80 billion, 30 percent more than the original bill. There are a couple of items of interest at play affecting the military and veterans community during these talks
. • The Work Opportunity Tax Credit (WOTC), which MOAA has been seeking to both extend and expand, could face some new restrictions thanks to an effort to extend the new Base Erosion and Anti-Abuse Tax (BEAT). WOTC is a valuable incentive for businesses to hire veterans
. • The legislation would change Thrift Savings Plan contribution caps for members of the Ready Reserve who already have maxed out their private retirement plan contributions. MOAA has been pushing for this change since the implementation of the blended retirement system, so all members of reserve components have an opportunity to take full advantage of their military retirement, regardless of other employment
• The bill, as currently written, also would clarify that veterans are to be considered eligible for the LowIncome Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). This HUD program gives state and local agencies authority to issue tax credits for the acquisition, rehabilitation, or new construction of rental housing targeted to lower-income households.

VA’s Suicide Prevention Program recently released this video explaining how the organization is leveraging a public health approach to prevent Veteran suicide.
“We often receive questions about what exactly the public health approach is,” said Wendy Lakso, deputy director, partnerships, VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. “This video is designed to help answer that very question.”
The public health approach maintains the focus on high-risk individuals in health care settings while also emphasizing comprehensive, community-based engagement to identify and help individuals well before they may become at risk of harming themselves.
VA is a national leader in suicide prevention, but VA cannot confront the issue of suicide alone. Because many Veterans do not use VA services and benefits, VA must build effective networks of support, communication, and care across the communities where Veterans live and work every day.
“We are encouraging everyone to share this video with community partners, colleagues, peers, clinicians, families and friends,” Lakso said. “The better we communicate the importance of collaboration, the more lives we can save.”
This video is also available on YouTube here: https://youtube.com/watch

On December 20, 2018 Congress passed the package of veterans bills late Wednesday, known as the Veterans Benefits and Transition Act. The legislation garnered bipartisan support in both chambers. President Trump is expected to sign it into law in coming days, though the White House declined to comment.
The Veterans Benefits and Transition Act stops schools from hitting students with late fees, dropped classes and other punishments as a result of unpaid school bills caused by processing delays at the Department of Veterans Affairs. If schools don’t agree to the new rules, they won’t be allowed to keep enrolling students using the Post- 9/11 GI Bill.
Additionally, military spouses can now elect to use the same residence as their active-duty spouse for state and local voting purposes, regardless of when or where they got married and whether they are currently living in that state because of military orders. Under previous law, a spouse had to meet the residency requirements of a state on his or her own merit for the purposes of voting.
Also as part of this bill, deceased spouses and dependents of honorably-serving active-duty troops can now be buried and receive headstones in VA national cemeteries through Sept. 30, 2024. Eligible dependents buried in tribal veterans cemeteries will also receive VA recognition, including by adding headstones to unmarked graves.