Teresa Morris, NOVA Director, Advocacy & Government Relations

Greetings NOVA Members –

It is hard to believe that it is already October. Congress has an increasingly busy schedule as the session begins to wind down. NOVA continues its work advocating for VA nurses. I am happy to report, a bill that would increase pay caps by amending Title 38 for RNs, APRNs, PAs and others working at VA has been introduced by the House. H.R. 5575, the VA Nurse Physician Assistant RAISE Act is critical to VA’s ability to recruit and retain high-quality healthcare professionals.

NOVA submitted testimony in strong support of the legislation acknowledging the importance of VA’s ability to recruit and retain healthcare professionals, especially in high-cost areas. We have been actively involved in advocating to change the current salary pay cap which has affected VA’s ability to hire and meet its mission to provide timely access to high-quality care for Veterans.

This has been a top priority for NOVA, and we need your help to get it across the finish line.

To read our testimony: nova_sfr_hvac_subcommittee_o.pdf (ymaws.com)

Watch out for more information on the NOVA website about how to contact your Member of Congress to urge their support for H.R. 5575. 

In other news, Congress passed a continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded through December 3. Note – VA is funded under advance appropriations which provides funding in advance, so the agency is not  held hostage to the annual budget battles in Congress. As noted in previous newsletter articles, FY 2022 funding for VA, includes about $270 billion in total discretionary funding with $97.5 billion for Medical Care.

Congress continues to work on two “infrastructure bills” one which already has cleared the Senate ($1.5 trillion for bridges, roads, broadband, and climate) and another – price tag being debated would expand education, paid leave, childcare, health care, and climate initiatives. 

All of these cannot move forward without an increase in the Federal debt ceiling - both the House and Senate cleared a short-term bill increasing the federal limit to $480 , enough to pay the government’s bills through Dec. 3. 

Other news out includes the release of VA’s 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report . Some of the key highlights and good news included a single-year decrease in the adjusted suicide rate for veterans from 2018 to 2019 (7 percent) and a nearly 13 percent one-year rate (unadjusted rate) decrease in suicide for female veterans, which represents the largest rate decrease for women veterans in 17 years.

The entire report can be found here : 2021 National Veteran Suicide Prevention Annual Report (va.gov)

I encourage all of you to remain engaged with your members of congress about the need for more staffing, stronger HR, and critical incentives to hire healthcare professionals within VA.

For a complete list of NOVA letters and congressional testimony, visit the NOVA website  Understand the Issues (vanurse.org)

Stay tuned!