Congress again facing a looming VA care funding crisis

[nitpicker]

https://www.militarytimes.com/veterans/2017/12/13/congress-again-facing-a-looming-va-care-funding-crisis/

Congress again facing a looming VA care funding crisis

By: Leo Shane III    11 hours ago

WASHINGTON — For the second time in less than a year, a controversial Veterans Affairs health program is just weeks away from running out of money and disrupting care for thousands of patients. And, for the second time over that span, lawmakers hoping for sweeping changes to VA health operations are scrambling to balance their long-term solutions with a short-term funding headache.

At issue is the Veterans Choice Program, which allows some veterans to receive private-sector care paid for with taxpayer dollars. The program is restricted to veterans who live 40 miles from the nearest VA facility or face a 30-day wait for care there, and has been at the center of debates over how to best deliver medical care to ailing veterans. Twice this year Congress has intervened to prolong the program, first in April to remove a later-summer expiration date for the funds, then in August to add $2.1 billion to keep the program solvent through the fall and winter.

On Tuesday, VA Secretary David Shulkin officially informed lawmakers that he expects the program to run out of money sometime in the next month. He is requesting yet more intervention from Congress.
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Shulkin warned in his letter Tuesday — and similarly in a letter over the summer — that allowing the Choice funding to lapse without a fix would result in “decreased access to care, damaged community partnerships and interrupted care continuity for veterans.” Those patients could not all be covered by other VA care options, he insisted.

House lawmakers have been unable to move their less expensive, less expansive community care bill out of committee in recent weeks. They’re expected to recess for the year by Dec. 22. That leaves congressional leaders about a week to figure out how to deal with the latest VA care crisis, or to decide to delay a decision to January and face a potentially even larger problem then.