FRA NED Meets with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
FRA's National Executive Director, Thomas Snee, along with representatives from other military and veteran service organizations, met with Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), House Veterans' Affairs Committee Ranking Member Rep. Tim Walz (Minn.) and other Democratic legislators to discuss women veteran's issues.

Some of the issues are regarding the care at Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical centers that include: mental health care for women, access to child care, availability of mammograms, accessibility of vitro-fertilization benefits for service-connected disabled veterans, and changing the VA moto to be gender neutral. Some women veterans at the event claimed they feel the VA does not make them feel welcomed when they visit a VA center.

It was noted during the meeting that there is an increasing number of women veterans seeking care at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to include gynecological, prenatal, and obstetric care, and other gender specific services. Women veterans at the meeting claimed facilities hosting women veterans need to improve privacy and safety. FRA is supporting the "Deborah Sampson Act" (S. 681), which seeks to improve and expand the VA's programs and services for women veterans. (See story further below)

Bill Introduced to Overhaul VA Appeals Process
Senator Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) introduced the "Department of Veterans Appeals Modernization Act" (S. 712) to overhaul the broken appeals process at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

The VA has more than 450,000 disability claims on appeal for service-connected disability benefits. Veterans who have filed and are dissatisfied with claims decisions written by the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), can appeal first to VBA and then to the Board of Veterans' Appeals. The Government Accountability Office recently released a report (GAO-17-234) warning that, if no action is taken, veterans may have to wait an average of 8.5 years by 2026 to have their claims resolved because of redundancies and inefficiencies in the appeals process.

The legislation would give veterans clear options after receiving an initial decision by consolidating the current appeals process into three distinct tracks:

•    Local Higher Level Review:  This lane would provide the opportunity for a quick resolution of the claim by a higher-level adjudicator at the VA Regional Office. This lane would be a good option for veterans who are confident they have all the evidence necessary to win their claim.
•    New Evidence: This lane would be for submitting new evidence at the VA Regional Office. This would serve as a good option for veterans who believe they can succeed on their claim by providing additional evidence.
•    Board Review: In this last lane, intermediate steps currently required by statute to receive Board review would be eliminated. Furthermore, hearing and non-hearing options at the Board would be handled on separate dockets so these distinctly different types of work can be better managed.

Members are urged to go to the FRA Action Center to ask their Senators to support this important legislation.

Bill Introduced to Improve VA Programs for Women Veterans
Ranking Member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Senator Jon Tester (Mont.) and Senator John Boozman (Ariz.) recently introduced the "Deborah Sampson Act" (S. 681) which seeks to improve and expand the VA's programs and services for women veterans.  Major provisions of the bill include the following:

•    Empowers women veterans by expanding peer-to-peer counseling, group counseling and call centers for women veterans;
•    Improves the quality of care for infant children of women veterans by increasing the number of days of maternity care VA facilities can provide and authorizing medically-necessary transportation for newborns;
•    Eliminates barriers to care by increasing the number of gender-specific providers and coordinators in VA facilities, training clinicians and retrofitting VA facilities to enhance privacy and improve the environment of care for women veterans;
•    Provides support services for women veterans seeking legal assistance, and authorizes additional grants for organizations supporting low-income women veterans; and
•    Improves the collection and analysis of data regarding women and minority veterans and expands outreach by centralizing all information for women veterans in one easily accessible place on the VA website.

The Act gets its name from Deborah Sampson, the woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. She was wounded in 1782 and spent half of her life fighting to be recognized for her service.  Members can go to the FRA Action Center to ask their Senators to support this bill.