Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin made two
surprise announcements Wednesday before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs
Committee that should relieve some financial stress for more than
600,000 veterans.
First, Shulkin said he was dropping VA’s appeal of the Staab case
decided last year by the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims. Only
last week he said Staab had been wrongly decided, exposing VA to at
least $2 billion in veteran claims for outside emergency care, money VA
needed to provide promised services.
Pulling the appeal means VA intends to begin covering private-sector
emergency care for any VA-enrolled veteran, even if they have
alternative health insurance that pays part of their emergency care
costs. As many as 370,000 veterans with pending claims could benefit
too, explained Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who thanked Shulkin for
changing his mind. Shulkin said Rounds and Sen. Richard Blumenthal,
D-Conn., were right to sharply criticize the decision to appeal.
Shulkin’s second surprise Wednesday was to tell Sen. Dean Heller,
R-Nev., he will work with Congress to find a less hurtful way to fund
his Choice replacement plan, CARE, than by administratively ending
Individual Unemployability (IU) eligibility next year for 208,000
seriously disabled veterans age 62 or older.
IU allows veterans with VA disability ratings of 60 percent to 90
percent to receive enhanced compensation because they are unable to
work. IU qualifies veterans to receive disability pay as if they were
100 percent disabled. It adds an average of $1,600 to their monthly
payments, a VA official told senators.
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