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IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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Bill Also Expands Veterans' Health Care Access and Eligibility WASHINGTON, D.C. - Disabled veterans would receive service dogs, eligibility to VA health care would be expanded, and the VA would explore improved coordination of ambulatory and community hospital care for veterans who live too far from major VA facilities if H.R. 2792, introduced in the House Thursday night before the August break, is signed into law. The Disabled Veterans Service Dog and Health Care Improvement Act of 2001, introduced by VA Subcommittee on Health Chairman Jerry Moran (KS-01) would authorize service dogs for veterans enrolled in VA health care. These service dogs would assist those with disabilities or diseases that impair their mobility, hearing, or other activities of daily living. In addition, eligible veterans would receive travel reimbursement for the costs involved in training or adjusting to the dog. Moran said he hopes to repeat with this bill the success of a similar effort as a freshman Senator in the State Senate of Kansas. "At the time, the Senate rules did not allow an employee to bring her service dog on to the floor," Moran said. "Her work required her to be on the floor, but due to her disability, the assistance of her service dog was a necessity." "It should be no different for our veterans," Moran continued. "For many disabled veterans, a service dog can mean the difference between living independently and requiring full-time care." The bill would also modify VA's "ability to pay" means test for health care by applying the "Low Income Index" the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) uses for housing assistance. The VA income standard would be retained as an income floor for health care eligibility, but the HUD standard, which adjusts for differing economic conditions in 61 metropolitan centers, would set the income ceiling. Moran said he believes this new approach would be a better measure of a veteran' s true ability to pay. "The one-size-fits-all standard doesn't reflect local costs of living and either denies some veterans a full range of health care or forces them to make co-payments they wouldn't have to make if they lived somewhere else," Moran said. "The current VA income floor of $23,688 can mean two very different things, depending on where a veteran lives and their economic situation." The third key provision authorizes $50 million a year for a four-year, four-site pilot project in which an enrolled veteran who lives too far from an urban VA hospital could be referred on a volunteer basis to a local hospital for short-stay general medical-surgical inpatient care. Under this provision: · Care would be managed by selected VA outpatient clinics where 70 percent of the veterans served live at least two hours driving distance from a supervising VA hospital; · VA could make co-payments required by the participating veterans' health plans or third-party insurers, including Medicare, and ; · VA would manage and coordinate admissions to local hospitals and take steps to return the veterans to VA follow-up care as soon as practicable. Other provisions of the bill would: · Require each regional Veterans Integrated Service Network (VISN) to maintain a proportional share of capacity in specialized medical programs. Included are programs for veterans with serious mental illnesses (such as substance and post traumatic stress disorders), and those needing care for spinal cord injuries, amputations, and blindness; · Establish a four-year pilot program of applied managed care through an outside contractor under VA's $500 million fee-basis and contract care programs. The programs are generally available to service-disabled veterans in serious medical emergencies, those who live too far from a VA health facility, or whose VA facility lacks the resources to treat them. "This bill addresses many of the needs that veterans' have brought to my attention during recent hearings," Moran concluded. "America owes it to our veterans to take the steps necessary to ensure their health and well-being. It is in our national interest to take good care of those who defend our freedom." Please visit http://veterans.house.gov, the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs web site, named 'One of the Best Web Sites in Congress' by the Congressional Management Foundation, May 3, 1999. |
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