Congressional Budget Office V. Title III of S. 2450, the Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014

Title III of S. 2450, the Veterans' Access to Care through Choice, Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014 1 (June 11, 2014)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo1762 and id is 1 raw text is: June 11, 2014

Honorable Bernie Sanders
Chairman
Committee on Veterans' Affairs
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Mr. Chairman:
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has prepared a preliminary analysis
of Title III of S. 2450, the Veterans' Access to Care through Choice,
Accountability, and Transparency Act of 2014, as introduced in the Senate
on June 10, 2014. That title would authorize and fund enhancements to
several programs of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In particular,
VA would receive expansive authority for the next few years to contract with
health care providers who are not employed by the VA, and VA would be
required to use that authority to ensure that all eligible veterans would
receive requested health care in a timely fashion. The effects of providing
such broad new authority to VA are highly uncertain, and CBO has been able
to make only a preliminary and partial assessment of the legislation. Based
on that preliminary assessment, CBO estimates that enacting Title III of
S. 2450 would increase direct spending by roughly $35 billion over the
2014-2024 period. CBO has not yet estimated the budgetary effects of the
other titles of S. 2450.
VA currently has about 8.4 million veterans enrolled in its health care
program. Of the remaining roughly 13 million living veterans, CBO
estimates that about 8 million qualify to enroll in VA's health care program
but have not enrolled. VA currently spends about $44 billion providing
health care services to veterans, or about $5,200 per enrollee. (That amount
does not include spending on programs that CBO expects would not be
increased under this legislation, such as long-term care, caregivers, and
ending veterans' homelessness.) Based on information from VA on veterans'
reliance on VA, CBO estimates that this cost represents about 30 percent of
the total amount of health care received by those veterans.

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