Take Care of America's Veterans Act
What's Next
The House vote was postponed; however, the Senate is still pushing forward and is planning to vote on TCAVA. It's more important than ever to understand what is at stake for veterans, service members, caregivers, and survivors, and to contact your Senators to let them know where you stand.
What Veterans & Their Families Win with TCAVA
Right now, a rare opportunity is available to deliver 62 bipartisan, bicameral bills The Legion has previously supported. The Take Care of America's Veterans Act (TCAVA) includes priorities like the Major Richard Star Act, the Love Lives On Act, the VITAL Act, the HONOR Act, the SAVES Act, and 57 others delivering benefits, health care, education, and essential services to combat-injured veterans, surviving spouses, and families.
For the first time in a generation, the votes and resources line up to move dozens of long-stalled priorities together. Rather than letting the moment pass and having veterans go back to waiting indefinitely for single-issue bills to pass one by one, The American Legion is capitalizing on it.
What TCAVA Delivers...
32M+
21M+
637K+
930K+
500K+
2.5M+
$20 Billion at risk.
Loading...
...until veterans stand to lose $20 billion worth of benefits without getting anything in return.
Contact your Senators TODAY.
TCAVA AT-A-GLANCE
Mental Health – 9 PROVISIONS
- Standardized mental-health residential screening & admission, with a community fallback if VA can’t admit in time
- Plan & pilot to improve disability-related access to residential programs for SCI veterans
Independent study comparing VA-direct vs. community mental-health & addiction outcomes
3-year grants for nonprofits providing integrated therapy to veterans & families
3-year grant pilot providing trained service dogs to veterans with PTSD/TBI
GAO update & VA review of HBOT research for mild TBI and PTSD
Up to $5M in VA grants for mild-TBI neurorehabilitation research
Joint VA–DoD task force on blast-overpressure research & care
Expanded VA brain-health research & VA–DoD data coordination
Suicide & Overdose Prevention – 4 PROVISIONS
- Extends the Fox suicide-prevention grant program 3 years with new metrics & bonus awards
- Adds suicide military-occupation data to VA–DoD research
1-year pilot providing free opioid-overdose rescue meds to high-risk veterans
Waives copays for naloxone and limited (≤30-day) prescriptions
Combat-Injured & Disabled – 8 PROVISIONS
- Major Richard Star Act: Chapter 61 combat retirees receive full military retired pay and VA disability — no offset
- Adds $10K special monthly compensation for the most severely disabled (R1/R2/T)
- Creates a national prosthetics formulary & modernizes procurement
- Centralizes adaptive automobile-equipment payments & adds timeliness reporting
- Fixes a statutory gap omitting certain adaptive equipment for disabled veterans
- Clarifies adaptive sports equipment & prosthetics as covered medical services
- Requires annual preventive evaluations & assistive-tech assessments for SCI veterans
- Requires a plan to improve disability-related access for SCI veterans
Access to Care & Community Care – 20 PROVISIONS
- Veterans ACCESS Act: locks community-care access standards for 8 years; bars counting telehealth against eligibility
- Lets/requires VA terminate contracts with non-compliant or excluded community-care entities
- Annual public reporting of network sufficiency & payment-waiver requests
- Screens out excluded/quality-flagged providers & improves provider-data upkeep
- Standardized baseline training for direct, community & trainee providers, with tracking
- Grants VA/IG access to community-care records for audits & investigations
- Sets the community-care referral period to begin at the first appointment
- Timely notice of eligibility with written reasons & appeal instructions on denial
- Adds continuity-of-care & caregiver/attendant needs to best-interest determinations
- Requires written wait-time & drive-time options for each episode of care
- Permanently implements electronic scheduling so staff can book community care directly
- Elevates CCPI to the Secretary’s office with its own budget & waiver authority
- Documentation timelines & performance measures for community-care providers
- Lets VA assign traveling physicians up to a year to serve veterans in U.S. territories
- Authorizes controlled-substance prescribing across state lines via telehealth
- Formalizes telehealth, mail-order Rx & travel benefits for veterans in the Freely Associated States
- 3-year pilot assigning case managers to veterans dual-enrolled in VA & Medicare
- 5-year pilot connecting veterans to local health & social services
- Requires a VA plan to modernize scheduling with self-service & phone support
- Plan for an online module to request appointments, track referrals & appeal denials
Claims & Appeals – 9 PROVISIONS
- Bars denying a claim solely for a missed C&P exam — VA must decide on the evidence of record
- Authorizes the Board to aggregate appeals & class actions (3-year authority)
- Routes MST claims to specialized processors; adds reviews & a public MST dashboard
- Extends the community-care claim window to one year (from 180 days)
- Expands claims-processing automation & improves veteran mortality data
- Extends contracted C&P examiner authority across state lines for 7 years
- Requires clearer benefit notices & more understandable VA forms (FFRDC review)
- Ongoing assessment & reporting on the VHA clinical-appeals process
- Improves quality, consistency & oversight of claims & appeals administration
Women Veterans – 3 PROVISIONS
- Requires private, accessible lactation spaces in every VA medical center
- Requires VA to evaluate menopause/mid-life research gaps & submit a strategic plan
- Identifies facility investments for long-term care, including women veterans & SCI
Education, Transition & Careers – 11 PROVISIONS
- Expands the GI Bill to hybrid independent study with guardrails; protects Guard/Reserve; speeds MGIB refunds
- Provides full 100% housing allowance in the first year of apprenticeship/OJT
- Opens VET TEC to AI, semiconductor & other high-demand training providers
- Lets veterans use GI Bill benefits for tests converting military experience to academic credit
Gives online-only student veterans the national-average housing allowance
Maintains housing-allowance continuity during summer terms
Improves TAP contracting & reporting; extends the transition window to 540 days
Allows certified VSOs to present during TAP classes
Removes the master’s-degree requirement for VSOC counselors; expands VetSuccess to all states/territories
Lets veterans opt in to electronic education-benefit communications
Requires data on participation & completion in VHA educational-assistance programs
Rural & Underserved Veterans – 5 PROVISIONS
- 5-year pilot giving frontier-state veterans 1-year authorizations at critical-access hospitals
- Expands highly-rural transport grants to Tribal orgs & county VSOs; adds ADA-vehicle funding
- 5-year pilot expanding VA–rural facility agreements (co-location, telehealth, leasing)
- Feasibility study on full-service VA medical centers in Alaska & Hawaii
ATSDR literature review & 7-year health-monitoring program on toxic-exposure
Families, Survivors & Caretakers – 11 PROVISIONS
- Love Lives On Act: removes remarriage-before-55 as a disqualifier for DIC & SBP and restores TRICARE for surviving spouses
- Raises DIC 3% over COLA across three years
- Ensures ALS surviving spouses get the full DIC kicker regardless of the 8-year rule
- Requires VA to certify death within two business days to speed burial benefits
Extends health coverage, bereavement & workforce-transition support for former family caregivers
Codifies VA’s bowel/bladder program; lets family caregivers be trained & reimbursed
Opens VA home loans to Guard/Reserve with 14 days of active duty
Lets servicemembers & families use Fisher Houses regardless of duty status
Lets eligible spouses/dependents be recognized on memorial markers regardless of death date
Lets veterans/spouses who chose the urn benefit still be interred in a veterans cemetery
Directs ABMC to correct inaccurate religious designations on WWI/WWII overseas markers
VA Oversight, Workforce & Infrastructure – 25 PROVISIONS
- $500M for VA OIT modernization, cybersecurity, continuity & fraud prevention
- Authorizes a $1.8B major medical facility project in Manchester, NH
- Allows commercial construction standards to cut delays & cost
- Lets VA use partner space/parking/services to expand capacity faster
Permanently authorizes VA acceptance of donated facilities & minor construction
Requires a long-term infrastructure-modernization strategy
Revises major-medical-lease procurement (GAO/OMB) with market-based cost estimates
Creates a centralized VA acquisition office & strengthens the acquisition workforce
Strengthens prevention/detection of capital-project waste, fraud & abuse
Clarifies CFO authority & creates a congressional budget-information office within VA
Requires a single recognizable VA caller-ID & call centers in every time zone
Report on consolidating VA emergency-management functions & FEMA coordination
Creates a 17-member MedPAC/MACPAC-style commission to advise Congress on VHA policy
Adds state-veterans-home, nursing-home & VSO representatives to the advisory committee
Requires a 5-year human-capital plan tied to demand & quarterly staffing data (GAO-reviewed)
Brings VA psychologists under the same streamlined hiring statute as physicians
Reimburses up to 50,000 clinicians/year up to $1,000 for continuing education
Requires a telework policy under 5 USC 6502 with budget-impact reporting
Requires postings for all clinicians/professionals who could fill a vacancy
Standardizes credentialing windows; allows third-party vetting & electronic signatures
Pairs leaders at low-performing medical centers with high-performing ones
Requires 60-day notice to Congress/employees before a RIF, with justification
Requires risk-mitigation plans & performance metrics for VA reorganizations
Extends VA–DoD resource-sharing authority through FY2027 with new oversight
Names the subtitle the Veterans Infrastructure & Transformation (VITAL) Act of 2026
What's at Stake
6.2M+
80K
200K+
500K+
6.8K
59K
TIME IS RUNNING OUT.
Loading...
...until veterans stand to lose $20 billion worth of benefits without getting anything in return.
Contact your Senators TODAY.
A Coalition of Support:
Take Care of America's Veterans Act (TCAVA)
View the 23 Veterans Service Organizations in the coalition
- The American Legion
- Military Officers Association of America (MOAA)
- Wounded Warrior Project
- Elizabeth Dole Foundation
- Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS)
- American Veterans (AMVETS)
- Air Force Sergeants Association
- American Optometric Association
- Avalon Action Alliance
- Commissioned Officers Association of the USPHS (COA)
- Gold Star Spouses of America
- K9s For Warriors
- Korean War Veterans Association
- Military Chaplains Association
- Military Order of the Purple Heart (MOPH)
- Mission Roll Call
- National Defense Committee
- National Military Family Association (NMFA)
- Sons and Daughters In Touch
- United States Army Warrant Officers Association (USAWOA)
- USCG Chief Petty Officers Association (CPOA)
- Veterans Justice Alliance
- Vietnam Veterans of America
SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT
Addressing claims made about The American Legion's support of the Take Care of America's Veterans Act (TCAVA).
CLAIM:
"TCAVA cuts sleep apnea and tinnitus disability ratings."
FACT:
The proposed rating changes for sleep apnea and tinnitus originated with the VA's ongoing rewrite of the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD), not with TCAVA. The VA first proposed these changes in February 2022 through regulation years before TCAVA existed.
For sleep apnea, VA has proposed moving away from automatically assigning a 50% rating based on CPAP use and instead rating veterans based on the level of impairment that remains after treatment.
For tinnitus, VA has proposed ending the standalone 10% rating and instead evaluating it as a symptom of another service-connected condition.
Existing ratings are still protected in TCAVA, and the proposed changes would primarily affect future claims and future rating decisions.
CLAIM:
"The trade-offs aren't worth it."
FACT:
The choice is not TCAVA versus a perfect bill.
The current choice available is TCAVA versus continued gridlock on a long list of reforms veterans have earned but are yet to receive.
CLAIM:
"TCAVA cuts veterans' benefits."
FACT:
No veteran loses a benefit they already receive. The Legion does not support retroactive cuts, and TCAVA does not include any.
CLAIM:
"Legion is violating it’s own PAYGO resolution."
FACT:
It is common for legislation to include provisions where Legion resolutions compete against one another. In this case, there are nearly 30 American Legion resolutions in support of the bill, with 2 in opposition.
CLAIM:
"TCAVA takes money away from veterans with sleep apnea and tinnitus."
FACT:
If the VA implements its proposed rating changes through regulation without TCAVA, any resulting savings could return to the general federal budget.
TCAVA would instead direct any savings from the VA rating changes toward veteran-focused priorities, including the Major Richard Star Act, caregiver support, survivor benefits, and other provisions that expand benefits and services for veterans and their families.
CLAIM:
"Just wait for a better deal."
FACT:
The Star Act has waited since 2020.
Despite having 79 Senate and 334 House co-sponsors, it still has not passed in 6 years. Waiting is the status quo that fails veterans.
CLAIM:
"This bill is privatization of VA."
FACT:
This bill includes billions of dollars for VA direct care and requires a long-term infrastructure investment strategy.
It also requires a 60-day notice, including a risk mitigation plan and performance metrics, to Congress and VA employees before any reduction in force, and it requires the VA to terminate contracts with noncompliant community care partners.
CLAIM:
"Find the money elsewhere!"
FACT:
Waiving PAYGO is the ideal scenario, but is extremely rare and not realistic in today’s political environment.
Further, bipartisan members of the Armed Services and Appropriations Committees would need to agree on a DOD/DOW funding mechanism, and they do not.
Take Care of America's Veterans Act FAQs
(Click topic to expand)
What is the Take Care of America's Veterans Act (TCAVA)?
TCAVA is a large legislative package that combines more than 60 veteran-related bills into one measure, covering health care, benefits, caregiver support, survivor programs, education, and transition assistance. Many of these reforms, including Major Richard Star Act, have had bipartisan support for years but stalled when considered separately, often because of funding concerns. Combining them gives broadly supported reforms a single, viable path forward.
That also means the provisions are tied together. With more than 60 provisions in play and 535 voting members in the U.S. Congress, debate is expected. Even one disputed reform can slow progress; in a package this large, multiple points of disagreement are likely.
What does the bill actually do for veterans?
Quite a bit. TCAVA represents a rare opportunity to move a long list of overdue veteran priorities in one package, including:
- expanded suicide prevention
- better TBI care
- faster and more accurate claims
- relief for combat-injured retirees
- stronger support for family caregivers
- fairer treatment for surviving spouses
Isn't this making future veterans pay for other veterans' benefits?
No. Congress and VA recently testified under oath that they intended to update sleep apnea and tinnitus ratings. The question was whether any resulting savings would stay within the veteran community or return to the Treasury for broader government use. The answer appeared to be the latter. Supporting the bill, then, was a way to keep veteran dollars with veterans while moving long-overdue reforms forward.
More recently, VA was quoted in Government Executive saying “no changes are planned or imminent.” That shift is why we are re-examining positions they were prepared to take, and why this is a live situation.
Did supporting this bill violate The American Legion's own position on PAYGO?
No. Resolution No. 38 (2016) commits The American Legion to advocate for exempting VA benefits and services from the PAYGO budget rule and we have, for years, across multiple Congresses and both parties. Until Congress changes it, every mandatory-spending bill for veterans must work within it.
So, we did two things at once, as we always have: we pressed for the PAYGO exemption our members directed us to seek, and we worked within the rules as they exist to advance the priorities our members directed us to win. More importantly, this package alone carries provisions tied to nearly thirty standing American Legion resolutions — from the Major Richard Star Act to caregiver support to relief for surviving spouses. Working within today's rules while we change them is how work gets done for our members and veterans more broadly.
What is the Legion doing right now?
The American Legion is staying at the table, engaging key stakeholders, and closely monitoring changes to the bill. The Legion is seeking clarity from Congress and the Administration while working with partners across the veteran community to find a path that advances these reforms without undermining anyone's earned benefits. The work has not stopped.
What can members do?
Stay informed and be cautious of soundbites that can complicate or misrepresent the situation. The Legion will keep its members updated as the facts settle. Members can help by keeping the conversation grounded in what the bill actually does and doesn't do — and by contacting their members of Congress through the Grassroots Action Center to urge support for TCAVA.
Let's get this across the finish line.
Veterans and their families have waited far too long already. Urge Congress to pass the Take Care of America's Veterans Act (TCAVA) today.