Opposition is mounting in response to proposed legislation that would strip veterans of their earned benefits, accelerate the privatization of veterans’ health care, and reduce workplace rights and protections for thousands of veteran caregivers in the civil service.
AFGE joined a coalition of 22 labor unions representing hundreds of thousands of Department of Veterans Affairs employees and millions of veterans who receive their health care and benefits from the VA in sending a letter to lawmakers last week outlining our strong opposition to the legislative package.
“This legislation cynically packages long-sought, well-deserved new benefits for disabled veterans with benefit cuts to other veterans and a slew of provisions designed to further privatize the VA healthcare system,” the unions wrote.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (H.R. 9237, S. 4744) is a massive, 554-page legislative package that consolidates more than 60 separate bills. While the bill package proposes to improve veterans’ health care and benefits – notably by including the text of the Major Richard Star Act, which would rightfully allow combat veterans to receive both retirement and disability benefits – it also contains harmful offsets and other provisions that would undermine veterans’ care.
AFGE National President Everett Kelley joined representatives from Veterans Service Organizations, other labor unions, and members of the Democratic Veterans Caucus including Rep. Chris Deluzio of Pennsylvania at a press conference on Capitol Hill last week to denounce the legislation.
“A bill that calls itself the ‘Take Care of America’s Veterans Act’ ought to live up to that name. It ought to walk the walk. Instead, this bill should be called the ‘America’s Veterans Beware Act,’” Kelley said. “This bill would eliminate or reduce benefits for up to 1.5 million veterans, cut $57 billion in future disability payments over the next decade, further privatize mental health services and VA clinical research, and strip thousands of VA psychologists of their workplace rights. If we are to keep our promise to take care of those who have served us, we cannot turn our backs on them, and we cannot weaken the system designed to care for them.”
AFGE urges lawmakers to reject this omnibus legislation because of the poison pill amendments. Instead, Congress should pass the standalone, bipartisan Major Richard Star Act (H.R. 2102, S. 1032), which would allow certain combat-injured veterans to receive both their full military retired pay and VA disability compensation, regardless of their disability rating.
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Click here to send a letter to your members of Congress urging them to reject the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act as currently drafted.
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