Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted Republicans on Tuesday for saying that a major veterans benefits bill is a help for veterans, while undermining the Department of Veterans Affairs and moving more care into the hands of private contractors.
Speaking to a reporter on the eve of Veterans Day, Ocasio-Cortez attacked the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act (TCAVA), a Republican package of more than 60 veterans measures. Critics, including some large veterans organizations, say the bill’s funding would cut future disability payments to as many as 1.5 million veterans.
The reporter asked Ocasio-Cortez, “Tomorrow’s Veterans Day, what are your thoughts on TCAVA, the Taking Care of America’s Veterans Act, which will take benefits away from veterans on Veterans Day?”
“Pardon?” she replied.
“Tomorrow they’re wanting to put TCAVA, the Taking Care of America’s Veterans Act, on the floor for a vote,” the reporter said. “That’s going to take benefits away from veterans. What are your thoughts about doing that on Veterans Day?”
“It’s, you know, one thing that we see from this Republican majority and this administration, and I’ve said this over and over again: they say one thing, and they do another,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “And they will say that this is good for veterans while gutting the entire infrastructure for veterans’ care.”
“And they do this over and over again. They want to privatize the VA. They want it all to go out to contractors,” she said. “They attack our public infrastructure on veterans’ care as the rationale for further defunding it instead of actually giving it the appropriate resources, investment and attention that we actually need.”
“And so it is insulting,” she added.
Ocasio-Cortez said she was glad the public was starting to see through the Republicans’ game plan. “And what I am glad and happy at is that people are finally catching on to their grift,” she said. “Because it is very challenging when they put forward legislation, and they say this is good for veterans. And then you’re kind of expecting people to play lawyer and dig through all the lines themselves.”
“So I’m very grateful that people are at this moment where they’re actually seeing what these Republicans are doing,” she said. “Because their goal, you know, I think that a lot of what they do is sabotaging the VA as opposed to supporting and making the investments necessary to doing it.”
She also praised Rep. Mark Takano of California, the top Democrat on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
“And, you know, I think Mark Takano, a lot of his legislation that he’s introduced and his leadership has been really fantastic on Veterans Affairs,” she said. “And I look forward to continuing to follow that.”
The reporter asked the congresswoman what she planned “to actually get legislation passed.”
Rep. Mike Bost of Illinois, the Republican chair of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, and Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas, who heads the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, introduced the bill package on June 10.
The centerpiece of the bill is the Major Richard Star Act, which would allow veterans who were medically retired because of combat injuries before 20 years of service to get both their full military retired pay and VA disability compensation. Currently, many such veterans have to give up a portion of their retirement pay. Supporters say the change would help about 54,000 to 60,000 veterans.
Other provisions include assistance to surviving spouses who remarry, increased payments to some survivors, expanded support for family caregivers, and extension of the Staff Sgt. Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program, which provides community mental health and suicide prevention services.
Another provision would make the VA’s community care standards permanent for eight years, allowing veterans to access care from private providers outside the VA system. Labor unions argue that the bill takes money away from VA hospitals and clinics and moves it to the private sector.
To fund it, the bill would codify the changes to the ratings for sleep apnea and tinnitus that the VA first proposed in 2022. Those are two common disabilities for which veterans receive disability pay.
Currently, tinnitus, a ringing in the ears, gets its own 10% rating. The change would consider tinnitus as a symptom of another disability rather than a separate condition. The separate 30% rating for sleep apnea would be replaced with a 0-100% scale depending on the success of the treatment, so veterans who control the condition with a CPAP machine would get less.
The changes would apply to new claims and to reevaluations. The VA said veterans who currently receive compensation for those conditions won’t have their ratings reduced because of the update.
A VA analysis cited by Disabled American Veterans and the Veterans of Foreign Wars says the changes could cut disability payments by up to $57 billion over 10 years and affect as many as 1.5 million veterans. Both groups oppose the bill, arguing that future disabled veterans should not pay for expanded benefits to others. The VA said it plans to implement the tinnitus change anyway.
Supporters, including the American Legion and the Wounded Warrior Project, argue that the bill package expands benefits and protects current beneficiaries. Bost called it the most comprehensive veterans package Congress has considered in a decade. He said the measure “will not harm a single veteran” and is “the only viable path forward” for the Star Act.
The bill stalled for months. On July 16, House Republican leaders pulled it from consideration just before a final vote after a Democratic motion to send it back to committee failed by one vote, 211 to 210. On July 29, Senate Democrats blocked Moran’s attempt to pass it by unanimous consent, and Republicans blocked an alternative from Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut that would use unspent defense funds instead of the rating changes.
The reporter said Republicans planned to bring the bill to the House floor on Wednesday. It did not appear on the House majority leader’s weekly floor schedule as of Tuesday, though the schedule mentioned that additional legislation may be considered.
Meanwhile, Takano and Rep. Raul Ruiz of California used a discharge petition, which got the required 218 signatures on Sept. 15, to force a House vote on a standalone version of the Star Act without the rating changes. The vote could happen as early as Wednesday. Even if it passes, the Senate, where Republicans have blocked previous attempts to speed the standalone bill through because of cost concerns, would still have to act before the end of the current Congress in January.
