Written by Joshua Patton,

The Veterans Affairs Committee has taken action on five bills pertaining to Veterans’ issues, moving them out of committee and into the queue of bills to be debated and voted upon in the Senate.  Of course, in the current political climate nothing is for certain, but there isn’t much controversy surrounding these bills yet that never stops the political players from using any bill as a bargaining chip.  Many of the bills have been discussed already in these pages – for example the Hiring Heroes Act of 2011 and updates to the GI Bill – that should face little opposition in the House or the Senate.  However, for some other lesser-known bills, it is impossible to predict if there will be any political posturing or delays on either side of the aisle.

The two bills that may face some roadblocks are very different in scope, but all boil down to the same thing:  money.  The more “controversial,” of the two bills is one that would close a loophole that prevents VA clinicians from the type of collective bargaining power currently enjoyed by all other federal employees.  While these employees – the nurses and doctors caring for veterans in the hospital – deserve to be paid and paid fairly.  Since Federal Employees can’t go on strike, preventing this is not a worry.  However, the concern lies in the already overtaxed VA bureaucracy and the stretched-thin VA budget and how this might affect that.  However much time and money would be spent on the clinicians fighting with management is time and money that isn’t spent on the veterans in their care.  The VA is a system with no small share of problems and the political plays may be made from the position of deficit-concern or the anti-bargaining trend currently in favor.  Yet, the real question is whether or not this is the right move to make at this time, when things like the backlog of claims and the denial of care to eligible vets seem to be more pressing problems.  Although, perhaps the VA will be able to attract more clinicians to their employ and thereby increase the amount of veterans they service.

The VA was also part of another of the bills approved, although merely as a vehicle for administering health care to hundreds of thousands of veterans and their families who may have been exposed to and affected by contaminated water and then virtually ignored by the government.  The VA would be the ones to provide the healthcare for this, but the DoD would be required to foot the bill.  Senator Richard Burr, a Republican from North Carolina, is the bill’s main sponsor but one has to wonder if he has the support of the Republicans in the House, who can stall the progress of this Senate bill considering their version is still stuck in committee.  The pricetag on this bill is a steep one and it is unknown how the deficit-hawks or even the Obama administration will respond to this bill. 

The bills will be brought up for a vote at an undetermined time, so while they all graduated from committee together, they may be voted on intermittently or not at all.