Veterans Administration Changes in Health Care Enrollment

CVSO Article due 17 July 2009


By: Dan Meyer
The office hours for the Lac qui Parle County Veterans Service Office are 8:00 am - 4:30 pm Monday through Friday. My office phone number is (320) 598-3445.

Attention Vietnam Era Veterans. I will have an Outreach Booth in front of the Klein Bank in Madison, Minnesota from 1000 - 1400 hours on Friday, July 24, 2009. Those veterans who visit the VA Benefits Booth will receive a U.S. Flag Pin, VA Benefit Handouts, and a VA "Presumptive" Disability Benefits Fact Sheet.

In other news. On January 15, 2009, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reopened health care enrollment some veterans who had been barred from enrolling in its health care system since January 17, 2003. This change in regulations means that nearly 266,000 veterans could be enrolled in VA’s health care program by October 2010.

As many as 4,000 new veterans could be enrolled as the Department will send out letters to nearly half a million others asking them to reapply and see if they qualify under the new rules.

For many years, veterans who were not disabled or indigent could gain access to VA facilities only on a case-by-case and space available basis. The Veterans Health Care Eligibility Reform Act of 1996 directed the VA to build more clinics and establish an enrollment system based on seven, and later eight, priority groups.

In 1999, VA health care was opened to any veteran. Over the next three years, the proportion of higher-income, non-disabled veterans enrolled in the VA system climbed to 30 percent.

By 2003, VA officials became concerned that the flood of Group 8 Veterans was endangering the system’s ability to care for higher priority veterans; and therefore, decided to prohibit Priority 8 Veterans from enrolling in the VA health care system.

This prohibition was intended to be temporary, but it wasn’t. This changes last year when Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, chairman of the House appropriations panel responsible for Veterans funding, successfully lobbied Congress for $375 million to re-enroll Priority 8 Veterans.

The Priority Group 8 includes veterans with no service-connect disability and with incomes above a certain thresholds. The thresholds range from $27,790 for a veteran with no dependents to $38,948 for a veteran with four dependents, with each additional dependent raising the income level by an additional $1,866.

Veterans who applied for enrollment in the VA health care system on or after January 1, 2009 and were denied enrollment because their income exceeded the VA income threshold, will now be reconsidered and contacted by mail if they qualify.

All Veterans who have been denied enrollment in VA health care are encouraged to contact VA’s Health Resource Center at 1–877–222 VETS (8387) or
visit www.va.gov/healtheligibility.

Until next week, take care and "Fair winds and following seas!"