Connecting Veterans to Care Act of 2025
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Rep. Kean, Thomas H. [R-NJ-7]
ID: K000398
Bill's Journey to Becoming a Law
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5. Conference: If both chambers pass different versions, a conference committee reconciles the differences.
6. Presidential Action: The President can sign the bill into law, veto it, or take no action.
7. Became Law: If signed (or if Congress overrides a veto), the bill becomes law!
Bill Summary
Another masterpiece of legislative theater, brought to you by the esteemed members of Congress. The "Connecting Veterans to Care Act of 2025" - because what's more noble than exploiting veterans for a photo op?
**Main Purpose & Objectives:** This bill is allegedly designed to provide public transportation services to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) medical facilities. How touching. In reality, it's just another excuse to funnel money into the pockets of special interest groups and campaign donors.
**Key Provisions & Changes to Existing Law:**
* The bill amends title 49, United States Code, to make VA medical facilities eligible for urbanized area formula grants. * It creates a new certification process for recipients of grant funds, because we all know how well that's worked in the past (cough, Solyndra, cough). * The Secretary is given the power to suspend assistance if a recipient fails to provide transportation as certified. Because, you know, bureaucrats are always effective at enforcing accountability.
**Affected Parties & Stakeholders:**
* Veterans: The supposed beneficiaries of this bill. But let's be real, they're just pawns in a game of political grandstanding. * Public Transportation Agencies: They'll get more funding, but only if they play by the rules and provide transportation to VA facilities. It's like a game of "SimCity" for bureaucrats. * Lobbyists and Special Interest Groups: The real winners here. They'll get to line their pockets with taxpayer dollars while pretending to care about veterans.
**Potential Impact & Implications:**
* More money will be wasted on inefficient public transportation systems, because that's what happens when you throw money at a problem without solving the underlying issues. * Veterans might see some marginal improvements in transportation services, but only if they live near a VA facility and are willing to navigate the bureaucratic red tape. * The bill will create more opportunities for corruption and abuse of power, because that's what happens when you give bureaucrats more control over taxpayer dollars.
In conclusion, this bill is a classic case of "legislative lupus" - it's a disease where politicians pretend to care about a issue while actually just serving their own interests. The symptoms are clear: empty rhetoric, bureaucratic inefficiency, and a healthy dose of corruption. But hey, at least the title sounds good on a campaign brochure.
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Project 2025 Policy Matches
This bill shows semantic similarity to the following sections of the Project 2025 policy document. Higher similarity scores indicate stronger thematic connections.
Introduction
— 646 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 3. Section 121 (developing and administering an education program that teaches veterans about their health care options available from the Department of Veterans Affairs). 4. Section 152 (returning the Office for Innovation of Care and Payment to the Office of Enterprise Integration with a joint governance process set up with the VHA). 5. Section 161 (overhauling Family Caregiver Program expansion, which has gone poorly, so that it focuses on consistency of eligibility and awareness that the most severely wounded or injured may require the program indefinitely). l Require the VHA to report publicly on all aspects of its operation, including quality, safety, patient experience, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness, using standards similar to those in the Medicare Accountable Care Organization program so that the government may monitor and achieve continuous improvement in the VA system more effectively. l Encourage VA Medical Centers to seek out relevant academic and private- sector input in their communities to improve the overall patient experience. Budget l Conduct an independent audit of the VA similar to the 2018 Department of Defense (DOD) audit to identify IT, management, financial, contracting, and other deficiencies. l Assess the misalignment of VHA facilities and rising infrastructure costs. The VHA operates 172 inpatient medical facilities nationally that are an average of 60 years old. Some of these facilities are underutilized and inadequately staffed. Facilities in certain urban and rural areas are seeing significant declines in the veteran population and strong competition for fresh medical staff. In 2018, Congress authorized an Asset Infrastructure Review (AIR) of national VHA medical markets to provide insight into where the VA health care budget should be responsibly allocated to serve veterans most effectively. However, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee lacked the political will to act on the White House’s nominations of commission members, and this ultimately led to termination of the AIR process. The next Administration should seek out agile, creative, and politically acceptable operational solutions to this aging infrastructure status quo,
Introduction
— 646 — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise 3. Section 121 (developing and administering an education program that teaches veterans about their health care options available from the Department of Veterans Affairs). 4. Section 152 (returning the Office for Innovation of Care and Payment to the Office of Enterprise Integration with a joint governance process set up with the VHA). 5. Section 161 (overhauling Family Caregiver Program expansion, which has gone poorly, so that it focuses on consistency of eligibility and awareness that the most severely wounded or injured may require the program indefinitely). l Require the VHA to report publicly on all aspects of its operation, including quality, safety, patient experience, timeliness, and cost-effectiveness, using standards similar to those in the Medicare Accountable Care Organization program so that the government may monitor and achieve continuous improvement in the VA system more effectively. l Encourage VA Medical Centers to seek out relevant academic and private- sector input in their communities to improve the overall patient experience. Budget l Conduct an independent audit of the VA similar to the 2018 Department of Defense (DOD) audit to identify IT, management, financial, contracting, and other deficiencies. l Assess the misalignment of VHA facilities and rising infrastructure costs. The VHA operates 172 inpatient medical facilities nationally that are an average of 60 years old. Some of these facilities are underutilized and inadequately staffed. Facilities in certain urban and rural areas are seeing significant declines in the veteran population and strong competition for fresh medical staff. In 2018, Congress authorized an Asset Infrastructure Review (AIR) of national VHA medical markets to provide insight into where the VA health care budget should be responsibly allocated to serve veterans most effectively. However, the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee lacked the political will to act on the White House’s nominations of commission members, and this ultimately led to termination of the AIR process. The next Administration should seek out agile, creative, and politically acceptable operational solutions to this aging infrastructure status quo, — 647 — Department of Veterans Affairs reimagine the health care footprint in some locales, and spur a realignment of capacity through budgetary allocations. Specifically: 1. Embrace the expansion of Community Based Outpatient Clinics (CBOCs) as an avenue to maintain a VA footprint in challenging medical markets without investing further in obsolete and unaffordable VA health care campuses. 2. Explore the potential to pilot facility-sharing partnerships between the VA and strained local health care systems to reduce costs by leveraging limited talent and resources. Personnel l Extend the term of the Under Secretary for Health (USH) to five years. Additionally, authority should be given to reappoint this individual for a second five-year term both to allow for continuity and to protect the USH from political transition. l Establish a Senior Executive Service (SES) position of VHA Care System Chief Information Officer (CIO), selected by and reporting to the chief of the VHA Care System with a dotted line to the VA CIO. l Identify a workflow process to bring wait times in compliance with VA MISSION Act–required time frames wherever possible. 1. Assess the daily clinical appointment load for physicians and clinical staff in medical facilities where wait times for care are well outside of the time frames required by the VA MISSION Act. 2. Require VHA facilities to increase the number of patients seen each day to equal the number seen by DOD medical facilities: approximately 19 patients per provider per day. Currently, VA facilities may be seeing as few as six patients per provider per day. 3. Consider a pilot program to extend weekday appointment hours and offer Saturday appointment options to veterans if a facility continues to demonstrate that it has excess capacity and is experiencing delays in the delivery of care for veterans. 4. Identify clinical services that are consistently in high demand but require cost-prohibitive compensation to recruit and retain talent, and examine exceptions for higher competitive pay.
About These Correlations
Policy matches are calculated using semantic similarity between bill summaries and Project 2025 policy text. A score of 60% or higher indicates meaningful thematic overlap. This does not imply direct causation or intent, but highlights areas where legislation aligns with Project 2025 policy objectives.