Concerned Veterans For America’s Fixing Veterans Health Care Taskforce is proud to present our final report and recommendations, which we have titled the Veterans Independence Act.
Sign the petition to support the Veterans Independence Act and demand our veterans receive real health care choice!
UNDER THE CURRENT SYSTEM PRIVATE SNUFFY ISN'T IN CONTROL OF HIS HEALTH CARE
Concerned Veterans for America (CVA) convened the Fixing Veterans Health Care Taskforce with the mission of:
This bi-partisan taskforce included, and is co-chaired by, a top-notch list of former VA leaders, health care experts, and leading congressional voices.
The Taskforce issued its final report with a concrete set of policy recommendations – the Veterans Independence Act – at our policy summit on February 26th, 2015. Both the report and video of the summit are available below.
We will continue working with reform-minded legislators to propose legislation for the current session of Congress.
Join us in our efforts to transform the way health care is delivered to our veterans.
For this country and her veterans,
DARIN SELNICK
Executive Director
Fixing Veterans Health Care Taskforce
Veterans Health Care Summit
The taskforce believes that the VHA has developed certain capabilities that are worth preserving.
The VA is a leader in certain areas of medicine like prosthetics and mental health. It would be in the country’s best interest to maintain and possibly even to expand these capabilities. By making the VA integrated health care system a nonprofit corporation, they can actually better focus on those capabilities.
Many veterans will still choose to use the independent VA health care system because of:
-VA’s specialization in treating certain conditions
-Most plans would provide most services through the independent VA health care system (which we rename the Veterans Accountable Care Organization- VACO) with no-cost sharing.
-The reforms will lead to better care in the VA system meaning many will choose to stay.
Under the Veteran Independence Act, veterans who use the independent VACO will not have to pay any copays or deductibles.
While there will still be some out-of-pocket costs, many veterans are already forced to pay co-pays through the current VA health care system for certain medical services.
The proposed premium support plan bases its level of premium support based on:
1. Level of disability
2. Whether or not a veteran served in a combat zone and
3. Financial need.
This is in keeping with the taskforce’s desire to reorient the VA health care system back towards it’s original mission of caring for the veterans with service-connected disabilities.
The priority group system was created by Congress to ensure that those veterans with higher disability ratings received a higher priority for care within the VA health care system in addition to the higher levels of benefits associated with a higher disability rating.
No veterans who are currently enrolled in the VA system will kicked out of the system. All current enrollees will be grandfathered into new system with the same level of benefits.
However, the Veterans Independence Act proposes tightening eligibility requirements for new enrollees at a certain date in order to reorient the VA back towards its mission of providing care for service-connected disabled veterans.
Through the introduction of cost-sharing and tightening enrollment eligibility requirements.
No, eligible veterans would be able to purchase their plans through the Veterans Health Insurance Program (VHIP) which has a menu of available insurance plans in their states. Veterans would not be forced to use Healthcare.gov or use a state or federally-run Obamacare exchange.
To make sure that the program is implemented as smoothly as possible and to ensure that any implementation issues can be addressed with a fewer number of veterans within the system.
This is also why the Veterans Independence Act would create an implementation commission to oversee the implementation of the recommended reforms.
The Veterans Independence Act does not in any way alter the relationship between the VA and DoD.
The Veterans Independence Act does not address the disability system or the Veterans Benefit Administration.
CVA’s Fixing Veterans Health Care Taskforce is proud to present our final report and recommendations, which we have title the Veterans Independence Act.
The Veterans Independence Act recommends reforms which would offer veterans the choice of obtaining private health care coverage paid for by the VA, convert the VA health care system into a government non-profit corporation to increase its flexibility, and which would increase the transparency of the Veterans Health Administration.
Find out more about our reforms by reading the full report:
Read Full Report