Take Care of America’s Veterans Act: An Omni-busted package that Congress must fix

Congress should continually seek ways to improve the lives of America’s Veterans. Expanding access to care, reducing bureaucratic delays, correcting longstanding injustices, and ensuring veterans receive the benefits they have earned should be bipartisan goals.

Unfortunately, the proposed “Take Care of America’s Veterans Act” or (TCAVA) undermines those principles by coupling worthwhile reforms with an unprecedented effort to reduce future disability compensation for veterans suffering from two of the most common service-connected disabilities: sleep apnea and tinnitus.

That combination should concern every veteran, not simply those who may one day file claims for these conditions.

For decades, Congress has largely respected an important principle: medical determinations contained within the Department of Veterans Affairs’ disability rating schedule should remain the responsibility of the VA through its established regulatory process. The disability rating schedule is designed to evolve as medical science advances and is implemented by medical experts, actuaries, and policymakers within the executive branch.

Congress has occasionally modified veterans’ benefits through legislation, but it has never directly rewritten portions of the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities to reduce compensation for specific medical conditions in the way this legislation proposes.

That precedent matters.

Once Congress demonstrates that it is willing to legislate reductions to specific disability ratings whenever budgetary or political pressures arise, every other disability becomes vulnerable. Today’s targets are sleep apnea and tinnitus. Tomorrow it could be migraines, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, musculoskeletal injuries, military sexual trauma, or any other disability whose costs become politically inconvenient.

Veterans have every reason to view these proposed changes not as isolated reforms but as the opening move toward broader reductions in earned benefits.

Supporters insist otherwise, arguing that these changes merely modernize outdated criteria. But if modernization is truly the goal, then the established regulatory process already exists to accomplish exactly that. Bypassing that process through legislation signals that Congress is no longer interested solely in medical accuracy; it is willing to rewrite disability compensation directly.

That should alarm every veteran regardless of political affiliation.

Equally troubling is the messaging surrounding the legislation. Indeed, the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC) majority made an immediate public relations push on social media arguing that it was “‘”following the science,” before ultimately admitting that it was a pay-for expected to save $57 billion on the backs of more than 1.5 million veterans over the next decade.

Rather than honestly acknowledging the trade-offs in the bill, proponents, including Rep. Mike Bost (IL-12) and many other congressional representatives, have framed opposition as resistance to helping veterans. This is a false choice.

Veterans are being asked to accept reductions in future earned disability benefits in exchange for unrelated improvements elsewhere in the legislation. In effect, one group of veterans is being told that another group must receive less so they can finally receive what they deserve. That is not sound policymaking. It is pitting veterans against one another.

Veterans should reject that framing.

Veterans should further reject the threats levied against the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) of the United States, one of the premier Congressionally-chartered Veterans Service Organizations (VSOs), over their strong opposition to the bill.

Chairman Bost accused the VFW of “inciting political violence” over political cartoons widely shared online, and it has been reported that Chairman Bost and Rep. Jack Bergman sent a July 1 letter to VA Secretary Doug Collins asking the secretary to review VFW’s charter, an unprecedented act attacking not only the VFW, but the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Recently, VA proposed to enact a rule change that would judge any disability condition based upon the highest or best level that disability might have following treatment or medication. Taken to it’s logical conclusion, this rule could have potentially lowered or eliminated financial compensation for an amputation, for instance, if a wheelchair or crutch could provide ambulation.

The backlash to this proposed rule change from the veteran community was immediate, strong, and unified, which led VA to back down.

It does not escape the attention of this author that the way this bill has been structured seems perfectly designed to fracture some of that unity, pitching veterans against one another to see their favored legislation advance. Now why might Congress want less unity in the veteran community?

Many provisions contained within the legislation deserve strong bipartisan support. Expanding access to care, improving claims processing, addressing administrative inefficiencies, and correcting inequities affecting military retirees are all worthy objectives. The proposed expansion of concurrent receipt through the Major Richard Star Act, for example, addresses a genuine concern affecting medically retired service members.

But that is precisely why these provisions should stand on their own merits. Veterans deserve legislation that solves problems without creating new ones.

Lawmakers should remove the provisions reducing compensation for sleep apnea and tinnitus, as well as the potential fee increase for refinancing a VA home loan, advance the broadly supported reforms as standalone legislation, and pursue military retirement reforms through the Department of Defense where they properly belong.

America has always promised that when its citizens answer the nation’s call to serve, the nation will honor its obligations in return. That promise should not become negotiable every time Congress assembles a new legislative package.

If cost for the care and compensation of the nation’s veterans is a concern, it’s one that must be weighed along-side any decision to engage in future conflict.

Veterans should never have to compete against one another for the benefits they have already earned.

America must honor it’s promise to care for those who have served in out nation’s military, and for their families, caregivers, and survivors.

Congress must honor that contract.

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