The reconciliation recommendations of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs would appropriate $17 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for health care, job training, and administrative purposes. In total, enacting the legislation would increase direct spending by $16.6 billion over the 2021-2030 period, CBO estimates.
The legislation would appropriate $13.5 billion to provide health care for veterans in VA facilities and to purchase care for veterans from other providers. In addition, section 8007 would require VA to waive copayments from veterans for medical treatment during the period between April 6, 2020, and September 30, 2021. It also would require the department to reimburse veterans who have already made copayments during that period. Under current law, VA will spend those collections from copayments to pay for some costs of providing health care; thus the budgetary effect of waiving copayments would be offset by a reduction in spending for health care. Section 8007 would provide an additional $2 billion for health care to replace some of those forgone collections. Section 8004 would provide $0.8 billion for the construction and operation of extended care facilities for veterans that are run by state governments.
