Heard on the Hill

Teresa Morris, NOVA Director, Advocacy & Government Relations

Greetings NOVA Members –

Congress has an increasingly busy schedule as the session heads into its final weeks.  NOVA continues its push for H.R. 5575, the VA Nurse Physician Assistant RAISE Act, which would increase pay caps by amending Title 38 for RNs, APRNs, PAs and others working at VA. We are hoping to get it finished before the end of the year. Our advocacy alert can be found on the website - Urge Congress to Support the VA Nurse and Physician Assistant RAISE Act - Nurses Organization of Veterans Affairs  . I encourage all of you to contact you Member of Congress and urge their support for the bill.

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.

In other news, the current continuing resolutions (CR) which funds the Federal Government expires on Friday, December 3 which means if an agreement about the FY 2022 Appropriations is not met, the government faces a possible shutdown by midnight. 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, but any long-term CR would have serious effects on VA services.  The advance appropriations process only works properly if funding levels are adjusted to address increased demand for benefits and services as part of the following year’s regular appropriations process, as is necessary for fiscal year 2022. Under a CR, all programs, services and benefits would remain funded at fiscal year 2021 levels, which would fall short of what VA need to take care of Veterans. 

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.

The House recently cleared the Build Back Better bill which includes social reform programs like paid family and medical leave, lower health care and Rx drug costs, extended child tax credits, universal pre-K and climate initiatives. This bill bookends the Infrastructure bill which the President signed as part of his Build Back Better Agenda, included in the package are several VA provisions - for the House VA Committee fact sheet on how VA will benefit from the new law: BBB Fact Sheet.pdf (house.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!