Congress and the President acted on the funding needs of the entire federal budget before adjournment for the Holiday. The national legislative staff wanted to provide you a synopsis of the funding levels approved for veterans benefits and health care in the omnibus act.

On December 18, Congress passed and the President signed into law H.R. 2029, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2016. This legislation provides the FY 2016 funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and includes advance appropriations for FY 2017 for most VA health care and mandatory spending programs.

The bill includes almost $163 billion in total discretionary and mandatory funding for VA for fiscal year 2016. This includes $91 billion in mandatory funding and $71 billion in discretionary funding.

Advance Appropriations: The bill includes $63 billion ($3 billion less than recommended by the Independent Budget (IB)) in fiscal year 2017 advance funding for VA medical care and $103 billion in fiscal year 2017 advance funding for VA’s mandatory programs for compensation and pension.

Medical Programs for FY 2016: The Veterans Health Administration, including its research programs, is funded at $62 billion ($2 billion less than recommended by the IB), $1 billion more than the Administration’s requested level and $5 billion more than fiscal year 2015.

Medical Care Highlights:

Hepatitis C Treatments. – $1.5 billion for new Hepatitis C treatments.
Women Veterans.-$5 billion in total health care for women veterans who use the VA health system. This includes $446 million for gender-specific health care.
Caregivers.-for the family caregivers program, $605 million ($50 million more than requested by the Administration).
Vet Centers.-$258 million to fund readjustment counseling.
Homeless Programs.- $1.4 billion.
Mental Health.-$7.5 billion, including $381 million for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, $612 million for substance abuse treatment and $144 million for suicide prevention outreach.
Rural Health.-$270 million for programs of the Office of Rural Health.
Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans.-The bill includes funding of $4.9 billion to treat almost 845,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Traumatic Brain Injury.-$232 million in care for veterans suffering traumatic brain injury or other polytraumatic injuries.
Long-Term Care.-$7.5 billion for institutional and non-institutional long-term services.
Medical and Prosthetic Research.-The bill includes almost $631 million, $42 million more than fiscal year 2015 and $9 million more than requested by the Administration.

Other:

Claims Processing: The bill includes $2.7 billion ($89 million less than recommended by the IB) for claims processing, $173 million more than last year’s level of $2.53 billion and $10 million more than the request.
Construction: Major Construction, $1.24 billion ($686 million less than recommended by the IB) for major construction projects; for minor construction, $406 million ($169 million less than recommended by the IB).
Grants for the Construction of State Veterans Homes: $120 million ($80 million less than recommended by the IB).
Information Technology (IT): The bill provides $4.1 billion ($158 million more than recommended by the IB) to modernize and sustain VA’s information technology systems.

In some respects (especially when compared to the IB), this appropriation is lacking in terms of known and projected needs. However, the overall rate of increase in funding for veterans’ programs is welcome.

Our entire DAV family sends good wishes to you and yours for a safe and happy Holiday Season and we look forward to continuing our advocacy with your assistance in 2016.

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Representative Corrine Brown, Ranking Member of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, introduced H.R. 2054, a bill that would provide increased access to VA health care for women veterans.

The bill would require the VA to ensure continuous availability of gender-specific services at every VA health care facility, including community-based clinics.

As established and documented in DAV’s September 2014 Report, Women Veterans: The Long Journey Home, women veterans are the fastest growing cohort in the VA’s current treatment population, but VA programs have not kept pace with the rate of growth. DAV made a series of recommendations both to VA and Congress to improve conditions in which women veterans would enjoy greater access to an appropriate array of services. The Brown bill is a direct outgrowth of DAV’s report.

Please contact your Representative to urge co-sponsorship and enactment of H.R. 2054. As always thank you for your active participation in the Commander’s Action Network.

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A MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY
VA Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Vietnam War

Our Nation’s Vietnam War Commemoration is a long-overdue opportunity for all Americans to recognize, honor, and thank our Vietnam Veterans and their families for their service and sacrifices during one of America’s longest wars.

VA Central Office, along with nearly 9,000 organizations across the country, has joined with the Department of Defense as a commemorative partner to honor our Nation’s Vietnam Veterans. I have designated March 29, 2016, as a day for our Department to express our tremendous gratitude and support to this generation of Americans through ceremonies across the Nation.

This commemoration recognizes all men and women who served on active duty in the U.S. Armed Forces during the U.S. involvement in Vietnam—November 1, 1955, to May 15, 1975. Nine million Americans, approximately 7.2 million living today, served during that period, and the commemoration makes no distinction between Veterans who served in-county, in-theater, or were stationed elsewhere during those 20 years. All answered the call of duty.

This commemoration has special significance for those of us at VA because of our honored mission to serve those who have “borne the battle.” It’s also an opportunity to remember our VA colleagues who served in this generation of Veterans, to extend our heartfelt appreciation to them and to their families who shared the burden of their loved one’s service.

Please visit http://www.vietnamwar50th.com/ to learn how your organization or facility can become a commemorative partner. This partnership provides historical media and beautifully-struck lapel pins and other recognition items for presentation to Vietnam Veterans.

Thank you for your continued service to VA and America’s Veterans.

Robert A. McDonald

Update on Presidential Memorial Certificate Application Process
The purpose of this notice today is to share information and make you aware of an important change to the law that now limits how a Presidential Memorial Certificate (PMC) request can be accepted, and what information is required when a request for a PMC is received and processed by our office.
Firstly, I’d like to take a moment of your time and introduce myself. My name is James Flanagan and I have had the honor of supervising the National Cemetery Administration (NCA) PMC program since late 2007. Since that time we have made many internal and process changes designed to provide the PMC more efficiently and timely.
The Dignified Burial and Other Veterans’ Benefits Improvement Act of 2012, enacted on January 10, 2013 amends Title 38 U.S.C. § 2411 to prohibit VA from providing burial or memorialization benefits to Tier III sex-offenders who were sentenced to a minimum of life imprisonment and who’s conviction is final. It also prohibits VA from providing burial or memorialization benefits to individuals who committed a State or Federal Capital Crime.
This law also impacts how we can process a PMC application. Where we used to accept older versions of our application form, because of changes in the law we can now only accept the June 2013 and August 2014 versions of our VA Form 40-0247 with each request. I’ve attached a copy of the 2014 form for your convenience and use.
The newly revised form requires the applicant to certify that “to the best of your knowledge, that the decedent has never committed a Capital Crime or was never convicted of a sexual offense for which he or she was sentenced to a minimum of life imprisonment.” Using and signing the new application form will ensure that your request is processed in a timely manner and also that we are in compliance with existing law. Submitting your request using an older or outdated form will delay the processing of your request until the new form is submitted.
Last but not least, I’d like to take this brief opportunity to share my thanks with each and every one of you for your continued support and partnership in providing these wonderful certificates to the family’s and loved ones of our honorably discharged & deceased veterans. I’d also like to encourage all of you to continue to visit our web page at http://www.cem.va.gov/pmc.asp where you will always find the latest copies of our request form. Please always remember to sign the form, provide supporting military documents showing Active Duty service and to use our 800-455-7143 fax service for the best service.
For information on VA burial benefits, visit http://www.cem.va.gov/ or call (800) 827-1000. Please look for our future e-mails on memorial benefits available for eligible Veterans and spouses. Also, please encourage your friends and colleagues to sign-up for notifications, future e-mail updates and information regarding VA memorial benefits through GovDelivery at https://public.govdelivery.com/accounts/usvanca/subscriber/new.
Respectfully,
James Flanagan
NCA Memorial Programs Service
PMC Program Manager
james.flanagan@va.gov
202-632-7300 (P)
202-565-8054 (F)

VA40-0247 NEW August 2014.pdf

President Obama has signed into law the Wounded Warriors Federal Leave Act of 2015 sponsored by U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch aimed at giving federal workers who are also veterans extra time off to seek medical care. The new law provides the employees with 104 hours of what Lynch calls “Wounded Warrior leave” during their first year in the federal workforce so that they can seek medical treatment for service-connected disabilities without being forced to take unpaid leave or forego their appointments. The Massachusetts Democrat said getting the proposal to Obama’s desk was a bipartisan effort. The measure passed the House unanimously on 28 SEP and then passed the Senate, also unanimously, on 26 OCT. Lynch said the new law reflects Congress’ gratitude and appreciation for the hardship and sacrifices made by veterans.

A new study could provide new clues for doctors struggling to treat a mysterious illness that has affected tens of thousands of Gulf War veterans for decades. The study, done with Department of Veterans Affairs funding in conjunction with Rutgers University, found that veterans suffering from Gulf War illness have damaged mitochondria, which can lead to chronic fatigue, one of the main symptoms reported by Gulf War veterans. “The more we know about the type of (damage) and the more we can characterize the mitochondrial damage in these veterans, the better we can treat them,” said Michael Falvo, the study’s senior researcher and a faculty member of the VA War Related Illness and Injury Study Center in Orange, N.J. “The symptoms are so diverse and vary so much person to person that that’s been a challenging piece.”
Gulf War illness (also known as Gulf War syndrome) is a multi-symptom disorder characterized by chronic fatigue, muscle pain and cognitive problems. While many believe that toxin exposure is to blame, and one study found a possible link to anti-nerve agent pills — toxic chemicals can damage mitochondria — the exact cause of the illness is still unknown. Falvo warned that while the study could help find better treatment, it was unlikely to uncover the root cause. “If I was a veteran experiencing Gulf War illness, I would want to know, too,” he said. “This many years after, that’s going to be a really difficult, if not impossible, thing to figure out.”
The study, undertaken by Falvo and Rutgers Biomedical and Health Sciences doctoral researcher Yang Chen, was based on blood samples from more than 30 Gulf War Veterans including about two dozen who suffer from Gulf War illness. White blood cells were separated from the samples and researchers were able to study the mitochondrial DNA for evidence of damage. These are preliminary findings and the study will continue through the summer, with researchers hoping to present a final paper by the end of the year, Falvo said. A larger study will be needed to confirm the study’s findings, he said. Twenty-five years after the U.S. sent forces into Iraq after Saddam Hussein’s invasion of his oil rich neighbor, Kuwait, many veterans are frustrated with the pace of research on Gulf War illness.
According to a 2008 government report, at least one quarter of all Gulf War veterans have experienced symptoms of the illness, and the Pentagon and VA were slow to publicly acknowledge it. Many vets are still fighting to get their illnesses recognized as related to their service in the Gulf War. Ronald Brown, president of the National Gulf War Resource Center, said he welcomes new research but similar small studies into the causes of the illness have rarely received funding for wider research, leaving the findings to languish unproven. “We have piles of studies that show promise that are sitting on shelves, collecting dust,” he said. [Source: Stars &
Stripes | Heath Druzin | September 10, 2015 ++]

The House and Senate are now in recess for the Thanksgiving Holidays and will reconvene on November 30, 2015.

Bill passed by the House on November 18, 2015

H.R. 1338, the Dignified Interment of Our Veterans Act of 2015, would require the Department of Veterans Affairs to conduct a study and report to Congress on the problem of unclaimed remains of deceased veterans and place a $2 million cap on Fiscal Year 2016 bonuses for VA senior executives. H.R. 1384, the Honor America’s Guard-Reserve Retirees Act, would honor as veterans retired National Guard and Reserve personnel who have served 20 years and do not meet the full requirements for veteran status under title 38, United States Code. The bills now await consideration by the Senate. Following House passage of the bills, Chairman Miller released the below statement.

Bill passed by the Senate on November 10, 2015

The Senate by a vote of 93 to 0, approved the Senate’s FY2016 MilCon-VA measure provides a total of $79.7 billion in discretionary funding, a more than $2.1 billion increase over the committee-reported bill. This amount is $7.9 billion above the FY2015 funding level and $1.0 billion over the President’s FY2016 budget request.

Mark your calendars second Call In Day on the Hill – December 9

The November 4th Call in Day on the Hill was quite a success more co-sponsors signed on to H.R. 1769 and S.901. We want to keep the momentum going and have scheduled a second Call in Day on the Hill for December 9, 2015 at 9:00 am.

This week, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) presented a new plan to Congress that would restructure and integrate VA and non-VA health care programs to expand access to quality health care. We believe this would be an important step in the right direction to ensuring veterans can receive high-quality, comprehensive, accessible and veteran-centric health care now and in the future.

We were pleased that the VA plan took many of the recommendations for change that we have been putting forward for many months, such as ensuring veterans have access to a nationwide system of urgent care. However, there is still work to be done with this plan, including adopting a number of additional reforms that DAV and our partners in The Independent Budget (IB) have proposed to ensure that there is sufficient resources, infrastructure, management reform and accountability.

At a hearing in the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee last week, DAV and our IB partners (VFW and PVA) submitted a comprehensive framework for reform based on four principles:

Restructure the veterans health care delivery system;
Redesign the systems and procedures that facilitate veterans’ access to health care;
Realign the provision and allocation of VA’s resources to reflect its mission; and
Reform VA’s culture with workforce innovations and real accountability.

Over the coming weeks and months, we will be working with VA, Congress and other veterans stakeholders to take advantage of this generational opportunity to strengthen and reform VA and veterans health care. We encourage you to read the IB testimony submitted this week and continue to stay educated and involved. We will need your support during this campaign to ensure that all the promises are kept to the men and women who served.

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On October, 15, 2015, the Social Security Administration (SSA) announced that due to low inflation this year, no cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) would be made in 2016 for Social Security beneficiaries. Since that decision would also apply to veterans receiving financial benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs, DAV issued a Commander’s Action Network alert on November 4, 2015, calling on our members and supporters to contact their House Members and Senators to urge them to introduce and enact legislation that would guarantee a reasonable COLA for wounded, injured, and ill veterans and their dependents and survivors.

Senator Elizabeth Warren and 18 of her colleagues have jointly introduced a bill, S. 2251, the Seniors and Veterans Emergency Benefit Act. The bill would provide veterans and others in receipt of VA financial support a one-time payment of about $580 (calculated based on 3.9 percent of the average annual Social Security payment). This one-time payment would soften the financial blow associated with the lack of an increase through a COLA, and the payment would be tax free. Payments would be disbursed to beneficiaries beginning 120 days after enactment. Even if eligible for multiple federal benefits payments, individuals could receive only one payment under this bill.

A one-time payment is not comparable to an annual COLA, and a one-time payment becomes less valuable to more seriously disabled veterans because of their higher cost of living. However, in absence of a COLA or other viable alternative, DAV calls upon its members and supporters to contact their elected officials in Congress and urge their support, co-sponsorship and passage of S. 2251. A letter for this purpose has been prepared for your use, or you may write a personalized message to inform your House Member and Senators of your support for this bill.

Thank you for your participation in the Commander’s Action Network, and for your support of DAV and our mission on behalf of wounded, injured and ill wartime veterans. Your activism makes DAV a more effective organization.

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According to a November 6 Military.com article by Jim Absher, legislation was introduced in both the House and the Senate to reinstate GI Bill benefits to people attending a school that closes during their enrollment. Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), the ranking member on the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and co-sponsor Thom Tillis (R-NC) introduced Senate Bill 2253; and Representatives Mark Takano (D-CA), a member of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and co-sponsor Chris Gibson (R-NY) introduced the companion House Bill 3991 in reaction to the closure of several colleges earlier this year.
Senate Bill 2253, the “Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Education Relief and Restoration Act of 2015” calls on the VA to restore any GI Bill entitlement used on courses that fail to transfer to another institution. It also directs the VA to continue paying the Post-9/11 GI Bill housing allowance until the end of the term during which the school closure occurred.