Legislative Priority Sheet

FY 2009 VA Budget – The American Legion National Commander requests Congress and the President provide the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) with adequate appropriations to meet the earned benefits promised to America’s veterans by a grateful nation. The table below reflects the National Commander’s budget recommendations for specific areas in VA’s budget:

FY 2008 VA Budget – The American Legion is extremely pleased with the 110^th Congress for the Military Construction, Veterans’ Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations for FY 2008 bills passed by each chamber. Both bills meet or exceed The American Legion FY 2008 budget request and are now in the Conference Committee. The American Legion strongly supports enactment before the start of the new fiscal year.

Priority Group 8 Veterans – The American Legion strongly recommends lifting the current prohibition on enrollment of new Priority Group 8 veterans invoked in January 2003. No veteran should be denied access to an earned benefit.

Assured Funding For VA Medical Care – The American Legion continues to support budget reform of VA medical care annual Federal appropriations. Currently, VA medical care is funded by annual discretionary appropriations. As a result, VA medical care has repeatedly fell victim to Federal budgetary miscues, such as significant budget shortfalls and continuing resolutions resulting in the rationing of health care, staffing shortages, equipment backlogs, and delays in nonrecurring maintenance. Each of these adversely impact timely access to quality health care, quality of health care provided, and even patient safety. The uncertainty of annual discretionary appropriations leaves VA health administrators not knowing how much funding to anticipate or when the funding will be available. Such uncertainty seriously impedes both short- and long-range planning at both the local and national level. The American Legion strongly supports a demand-based budget formula to assure VA medical care’s annual appropriations.

MEDICARE Reimbursements for VA Medical Care – The American Legion strongly recommends allowing VA to collect and reinvest MEDICARE reimbursements for the allowable treatment of nonservice-connected medical conditions of VA enrolled MEDICARE-eligible patients. Over half of VA enrolled patient population is MEDICARE-eligible, yet VA is prohibited from receiving any third-party reimbursements from the Centers of MEDICARE and MEDICAID Services (CMS) like the Department of Defense and Indian Health Care health care delivery systems. In addition, nowhere in the Federal budget is VA credited for the billions of dollars in mandatory appropriations VA currently saves MEDICARE annually. Since Congress offsets third-party collections against VA annual discretionary appropriations, The American Legion supports allowing VA to bill, collection, and reinvest reimbursements from all third-party health insurers, both public and private.

Capital Assets Realignment for Enhances Services (CARES) -- The American Legion supports the implementation of the CARES recommendations to Congress. After a thorough evaluation of VA’s infrastructure, the VA Secretary adopted specific recommendations to improve the health care delivery system. At the time, the plan called for a billion dollars a year for the next seven years to include construction of new medical facilities and community based outpatient clinics. The American Legion strongly recommends Congress focus attention to the CARES implementation plan, especially to addressing the growing needs in rural areas of the country.

VA Mental Health Care – The American Legion fully supports expansion of VA’s mental health care delivery. Due to the type of warfare involved in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom, the anticipated cases load of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury will require additional mental health professionals distributed throughout the health care delivery system, to include community based outpatient clinics and VET Centers. Addressing the serious mental wounds of returning service members is a national obligation.

VA Claims and Adjudications Process – The American Legion believes “justice delayed is justice denied.” The current backlog of pending VA disability claims and appeals is absolutely a national embarrassment. American veterans deserve timely and accurate consideration of their VA disability claims. The American Legion supports hiring additional claims adjudicators, improved continuing claims training programs, and improved quality assurance measures.