John Plahovinsak
On March 11, 2024, the White House officially released the President’s Budget for fiscal year 2025. This document contains the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) budget plan for the next year.
The $369.3 billion dollar budget proposal outlined VA’s critical investments in delivering medical care and disability compensation benefits to toxic-exposed veterans, improving mental health outcomes, and supporting our women veterans.
The proposed 2025 budget request was a $33 billion dollar increase above the fiscal year 2024 budget request. The 2025 funding request also contained a request for $24.5 billion dollars from the Cost of War Toxic Exposures Fund (TEF).
In releasing the President’s Budget, the White House indicated that the VA has implemented the PACT Act, expanded VA health care and benefits to millions of veterans exposed to toxins and other hazards; permanently housed more than 40,000 veterans two (2) years in a row and expanded life-saving support for veterans at-risk of suicide.
“Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors deserve the very best health care and benefits that this country has to offer,” said VA Secretary Denis McDonough, ”and President Biden’s proposed budget will help us deliver exactly that.”
“With these investments,” explained the VA Secretary, “we at the VA can continue delivering more care and more benefits to more veterans than ever before in our nation’s history.”
The VA budget has drastically increased over the years. For example, in fiscal year 2001, the entire VA budget amounted to $48 billion dollars. In fiscal year 2017, the VA budget was $182.3 billion dollars.
The 2025 proposed fiscal year budget is a thirteen (13%) percent increase over the VA’s 2024 budget request.
Most of the increase in VA funds has been attributed to mandatory health care and benefits spending which has expanded the number of eligible veterans for these benefits.
The Budget invests $112.6 billion in discretionary medical care funding. In addition to fully funding inpatient, outpatient, mental health, and long-term care (LTC) services, the Budget supports programs that enhance VA healthcare quality and delivery, including a $2 billion investment for non-recurring maintenance to improve medical facility infrastructure and address the opioid and drug overdose epidemic.
According to the Budget, his funding is critical since veterans who are enrolled in the VA healthcare system have better health-related outcomes than non-enrolled veterans. Additionally, VA health care is more often more affordable than non-VA health care for veterans.
The proposed Budget allocates $135 million to VA research programs, along with $17 billion within the VA Medical Care Program.
Another aspect funded in the Budget is $13.7 billion for Women Veterans’ healthcare, including $1.1 billion for gender-specific care. More women veterans are choosing VA healthcare than ever before, with women veterans accounting for over thirty (30%) percent of the increase in enrolled veterans over the past five years.
My Opinion: There are three (3) methods of viewing and reading the complex VA’s portion of the President’s Proposed Budget for 2025. First, the VA’s Budget portion is contained on pages 961 to 998 of the President’s Budget for all the Federal Departments.
These thirty-seven (37) pages are misleading because the pages have extremely small lettering (at approximately 8 pica) and have two (2) vertical columns per page.
Second, there is a fifty (50) page Budget in Brief (BiB) Report which covers the highlights of the proposed VA’s Budget, with charts, graphs, and narratives. For example, for the Veterans Electronic Health Records (EHR) Modernization Program is only seeking $894 million this year.
Third, there is a thirty-one (31) page PowerPoint report, filled with graphs, charts, and comparisons of previous years, with few words explaining the importance of the data.
The difficulty in dealing with the VA’s proposed budget is that it is only the proposed budget. On March 8, 2024, Congress has already signed off on $308 billion in VA spending for fiscal 2025. This was done to ensure that VA’s compensation benefits delivery and health care operations are not disrupted.
Between what the President requested of $369 billion and the $308 billion approved by Congress is a significant gulf of $61 billion. Realistically, both the President and Congress must compromise, and I forecast that the final VA Budget for 2025 will be closer to $339 billion.
BioSketch: John Plahovinsak is a retired 32-year Army veteran, who served from 1967 to 1999. He is the current Disabled American Veterans (DAV) Department of Ohio’s Hospital Chairman and Adjutant of DAV Chapter #63 (Clermont County). He can be contacted at: plahovinsak@msn.com.
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