After a ‘yes’ vote by the U.S. Senate the House of Representatives voted on Aug. 11 to approve the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017 (HR2288) during a pro forma session. The Senate bill now heads to the President to be signed into law.
A bill cosponsored by Sen. Thad Cochran and Sen. Roger Wicker, the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017 (HR2288) was unanimously approved by the Senate Tuesday night.
The Senate Veterans Affairs committee approved the legislation that will help veterans challenge their rejected bids for Veterans Affairs benefits.
“Many veterans in Mississippi and across the country are fristrated with the VA appeals process, which can drag out for years. They deserve a better system,” said Cochran, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “I hope the Senate will soon consider this legislation to overhaul the VA appeals process.”
The Act was approved by a voice vote and is intended to tackle the backlog of appeals pending with the Veterans Benefits Administration. It will provide three new options for veterans to appeal the denial of benefits.
Those choices include seeking a higher-level review, filing a supplemental claim with additional evidence, or appealing directly to the Board of Veterans’ Appeals.
Mississippi veterans are among the nearly half million veterans whose appeals cases are mired in the VA’s exiting backlog. Pending appeals cases increased more than 20 percent between FY2015 and FY2017, from approximately 380,000 to 470,000 despite pressure from congressional authorizing and appropriations committees for the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve its appeals process.
