New York, NY – VetsFirst, a national organization that serves the needs of America’s disabled veterans and their families, hailed the President’s signing of The Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act as a milestone in the road toward timely, sufficient and predictable funding for delivering critical health care to America’s veterans.
For decades, annual funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) budget for its veterans health care programs has been held hostage by political wrangling and Washington budget battles. Uncertainties and late budgets have prevented the VA from effectively planning for hiring medical and support staff, purchasing medical equipment, renovating deteriorating health care facilities, opening new clinics in medically underserved areas and conducting vital medical research. The result has been a decrease in available VA health care programs and services, longer wait times for access to health care and the loss of precious time in fighting and preventing disease and disability among our nation’s veterans.
The new law accomplishes two sorely needed reforms. It provides for Congress to budget for VA health care one year in advance of each upcoming fiscal year. Accordingly, the VA will know how much funding it will receive for health care programs up to two years in the future so it can allocate its resources much more efficiently. The law also requires the VA to produce a publicly-disclosed estimate of its advance funding requirements that will be reviewed for accuracy by the Government Accountability Office. This will ensure that Congress appropriates enough money to allow the VA to meet future veterans’ health care demands.
“Advance appropriations are not the end of the battle,” stated Paul Tobin, President of VetsFirst. “Even with this new law, Congress has not passed the VA’s budget for Fiscal Year 2010. The VA’s budget has been late for 20 out of the past 23 years. The resulting interruption in VA health care funding has put us back to square one. We must remain vigilant in demanding that Congress and the VA take advantage of this opportunity to ensure that our veterans receive the health care that they desperately need and rightly deserve,” Tobin added.
