WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, the House of Representatives passed Representatives Elaine Luria (VA-02) and Andy Barr’s (KY-06) bipartisan initiative to bring transparency and fairness to the disability benefits process within the Department of Veterans Affairs. Their bill, H.R. 7795, was incorporated into the Johnny Isakson and David P. Roe Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act as part of a larger reform package and passed the House unanimously.
“As a veteran myself and Chair of the Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee, I was proud to partner with Congressman Barr to ensure our veterans have access to the resources they need to receive the benefits they’ve earned,” said Congresswoman Luria. “This legislation is a positive step toward taking the burden off the veteran when it comes to the disability benefits process. No veteran should have their benefits delayed due to a lack of access to an administrative form or because they were not adequately notified of a bureaucratic change.”
The Veterans Benefits Fairness and Transparency Act (H.R. 7795) was incorporated as Section 2006 of the Johnny Isakson and David P. Roe Veterans Health Care and Benefits Improvement Act (H.R. 7105), which Congresswoman Luria also cosponsored. This section would protect veterans applying for VA disability benefits by requiring the VA to maintain availability of disability benefits questionnaires (DBQs) on the VA website. DBQs are the forms medical providers and others assisting veterans use to submit evidence supporting disability claims. This is an important fix because the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA) removed the DBQ forms from their website and closed its offices to in-person meetings due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The legislative package containing this fix passed the House today and includes pandemic assistance, additional benefits reform, and housing assistance for veterans.
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Well I would certainly be immediately able to recognize that this flotsam came from the desk of Congresswoman Luria without the headline. Thankfully she worked the phrase “BIPARTISAN initiative to bring transparency and fairness to the disability benefits process” into the very first sentence to get that talking point out of the way. From there, this announcement goes downhill. She, being the chair of this subcommittee, is PROUD TO ANNOUNCE ? that a law that was passed quite a while ago needed another law to be passed to make it clear that the application of the law needs to be fair and transparent. She should instead be ashamed, resign as chair, and become head of the boondoggling subcommittee, because that should have all been made apparent from her 1st day in office through her leadership. I’m sure Nancy won’t give that boondoggling subcommittee to Swalwell because he’s best at sleeping with the enemy. Are we still throwing up our hands Wayne ? Stay tuned. There’s more coming. Some throw up their hands when they can’t breathe. I throw mine up when I can’t believe the b.s. we’re fed.