Keep Veterans’ Savings To Federal System With Veterans For Their Healthcare Costs, Available Treatments Instead Of Returning To Treasury

Cut Through the Noise: Keep Veterans’ Savings with Veterans

By Frank J. Peters

There is a great deal of noise surrounding the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, some of it born from legitimate concern and some from confusion about what this legislation does, what the Department of Veterans Affairs is already doing, and what will happen if Congress chooses to do nothing. Veterans and their families deserve better than another shouting match; they deserve an honest account of what is at stake.

The VA has always evaluated its Schedule for Rating Disabilities, and it will continue to do so whether Congress passes this legislation or not. As veterans’ advocates, our responsibility is to follow that process closely, challenge changes that would unfairly diminish earned benefits, and ensure that veterans receive the treatment and compensation their service demands.

The proposed changes involving tinnitus and sleep apnea have understandably caused alarm. The American Legion shares those concerns and remains opposed to reducing veterans’ benefits merely to satisfy federal budget rules. We will continue fighting for a disability system that fairly accounts for the real, lasting consequences of military service.

It is equally important, however, to understand the distinction between medical treatment and disability compensation. I believe the VA will continue treating veterans suffering from tinnitus, sleep apnea, and other service-connected conditions; the present controversy concerns how certain conditions may be evaluated for compensation and, just as importantly, what happens to any savings produced by those changes. Unless Congress acts, that money does not necessarily remain available to veterans – it can simply return to the Treasury.

The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act offers a better answer by keeping those resources within the veterans’ community and directing them toward programs that could change lives and, in some cases, save them. The bill contains more than 60 bipartisan veterans’ proposals, including more than 30 initiatives supported by resolutions of The American Legion. Together, they address mental-health care, traumatic brain injuries, education and employment, VA health-care access, women veterans, caregivers, survivors, and the difficult transition from military service to civilian life.

Among those provisions is the Major Richard Star Act, which would correct a longstanding injustice imposed on combat-injured veterans who must sacrifice a portion of their earned retirement pay to receive disability compensation. These are two benefits earned for two different reasons: retirement pay for years of service and disability compensation for injuries sustained while serving. Asking an injured veteran to surrender one before receiving the other has never represented fairness, no matter how familiar the practice has become.

This legislation also recognizes something veterans have always known: military service is never borne by the servicemember alone. Families endure the deployments, the missed milestones, the uncertainty, and the injuries that sometimes follow a veteran home. Caregivers may surrender careers, savings, and years of their own lives to care for someone they love, only to lose much of the support they depended upon when their veteran dies. Survivors can therefore suffer two losses at once: the person around whom they built their lives, and the assistance that helped them carry the burden of that person’s care.

By strengthening support for caregivers and survivors, this bill affirms that our obligation does not end at a veteran’s grave. The veteran may be gone, but love lives on, and the promises made to the family should live on with it.

We have heard versions of today’s objections before. The original GI Bill met considerable resistance, including from those who warned that “everything that glitters is not necessarily gold” and questioned whether a nation already burdened by wartime debt could afford so generous a commitment. Had caution carried the day, America would have forfeited one of the most consequential investments in its history: an investment that educated generations, expanded homeownership, strengthened the middle class, and enabled millions of veterans to continue serving their communities after leaving uniform.

The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act is not another GI Bill, nor must it be to teach us the same lesson. Veterans’ legislation should be judged not only by what it costs on a ledger today, but also by what it prevents, repairs, and makes possible tomorrow.

The American Legion did not write this bill, and we do not pretend that every part of it is beyond criticism. Our opposition to applying PAYGO requirements to veterans’ benefits remains unchanged, and if Congress produces a better, politically viable funding solution, we will consider it seriously. What Congress cannot do is allow disagreement over the funding mechanism to become an excuse for abandoning every veteran, caregiver, survivor, and family member helped by the underlying legislation.

Sending veterans’ savings back to the Treasury while leaving more than 60 bipartisan proposals unfinished would not demonstrate fiscal responsibility. It would demonstrate that Congress found it easier to preserve an argument than to help the people at the center of it.

I have spent much of my life among veterans and working people. I served in the Navy, spent decades on the Staten Island Ferry, and, on September 11, 2001, captained the last ferry out of Manhattan before returning to carry first responders toward the devastation and help evacuate thousands from it. That day taught me something about quiet responsibility: when people are depending on you, there will rarely be a perfect plan, complete information, or time enough to settle every disagreement. You determine what must be done, accept the weight of the decision, and move.

Veterans understand that instinct, which is why we do not expect every serious legislative package to be perfect or every disagreement in Washington to disappear before Congress takes the next useful step. We do, however, expect our elected leaders to recognize when delay carries consequences… and when waiting for a perfect solution means allowing a good and necessary one to die.

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The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act will not settle every debate over veterans’ policy, but it would keep veterans’ savings working for veterans while delivering meaningful assistance to their families, caregivers, and survivors. Beneath all the noise, the choice before Congress is not especially complicated: allow those resources to disappear into the Treasury, or put them to work fulfilling promises this country has already made.

Veterans fulfilled their end of the bargain. Congress should fulfill its own by passing the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act.

Frank J. Peters is a U.S. Navy veteran, retired Staten Island Ferry captain, past commander of The American Legion Department of New York, and The American Legion’s 2026–2027 national vice commander representing the Northeast Region.