• Increase disability compensation and expand health care services for a larger group of veterans who were exposed to toxic substances or served in certain locations during their military service
• Increase the number of veterans without service-connected disabilities who can receive health care from the Department of Veterans Affairs
• Require several studies and reports on veterans’ toxic exposures during military service
• Establish a new mandatory appropriation to pay for the costs of health care associated with environmental exposures, expenses incidental to the delivery of that health care, disability claims processing, medical research, information technology programs, and other services associated with environmental exposure
• Reclassify of some discretionary spending under current law as direct spending
Estimated budgetary effects would mainly stem from
• Increased disability compensation and increased health care costs for certain veterans
• Operating costs and administrative costs for processing disability compensation claims and implementing the bill’s other provisions
• Reclassifying some discretionary spending under current law as direct spending
Areas of significant uncertainty include
• Estimating the number of veterans affected by the bill and the changes in their disability ratings
• Anticipating the number and prevalence of disabilities presumed to be connected to military service
• Estimating the number of veterans who would receive additional health care
• Anticipating the amount of discretionary spending that would be reclassified as direct spending
On February 28, 2022, CBO transmitted a cost estimate for H.R. 3967, as posted in Rules Committee Print 117-33 on February 18, 2022, https://go.usa.gov/xzCqG. The estimate for H.R. 3967 as passed by the House of Representatives on March 3, 2022, is the same. This estimate reflects changes in the version of the bill as posted on the website of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. At the direction of the House and Senate Committees on the Budget, this estimate is relative to CBO’s July 2021 baseline. This version, like the earlier version, contains no intergovernmental or private-sector mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act.
