Legislative Agenda

Download IAVA's 2009 Legislative Agenda (PDF) The IAVA Legislative Agenda covers four key areas: Mental Health, Homecoming, Health Care and Benefits, and Government Accountability. From these areas, we've chosen seven IAVA Legislative Priorities for 2009.

IAVA's 2009 LEGISLATIVE PRIORITIES:

Drawn from our 23 recommendations, the seven IAVA 2009 Legislative Priorities are actions Congress must take this session to ensure that troops and veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan receive the care and support they have earned.

• Ensure Thorough, Professional, and Confidential Screening for Invisible Injuries. IAVA supports mandatory, face-to-face and confidential mental health and TBI screening by a licensed medical professional, for all servicemembers, before and after their combat tour. See recommendation 1.1.
• Advance-Fund Veterans’ Health Care. The best way to ensure timely funding of veterans’ health care is to fully fund the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) health care budget one year in advance. In addition, IAVA endorses the annual Independent Budget, produced by leading veterans’ organizations (including IAVA), as a blueprint for the VA funding levels. See recommendation 3.1.
• End the Passive VA System. The VA has traditionally been a passive, inward-looking system. Veterans must overcome tremendous bureaucratic obstacles to get the benefits and services that the VA provides. Many veterans do not even know what benefits they are eligible for. The VA must develop a national strategy to promote the use of its services, including advertising VA benefits, expanding VA outreach, and modernizing the VA’s online presence. See recommendations 1.2, 2.4, and 3.2.
• Combat Veterans’ Unemployment. IAVA supports the expansion of employment training for troops leaving the military, tax credits for employers who hire troops and veterans, and a new “Green-to-Green” program to retrain veterans for high-paying jobs in the clean energy economy. See recommendation 2.3.
• Cut the Claims Backlog in Half. Hundreds of thousands of disabled veterans are awaiting an answer on their VA benefits claims. Errors in claims decisions are a primary source of the backlog. IAVA recommends a new evaluation system that holds claims processors accountable for the accuracy of their work. See recommendation 3.2.
• Improve Health Care for Female Veterans. 11 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are women. They deserve the same access to health care as any other American veteran. IAVA supports prioritized hiring of female practitioners and outreach specialists, increased funding for specialized inpatient women-only PTSD clinics, and significant expansion of the resources available to women coping with Military Sexual Trauma. See recommendations 1.2, 3.3, and 3.5.
• Eradicate Homelessness Among Veterans. About 150,000 veterans are homeless on any given night, and foreclosure rates in military towns are increasing at four times the national average. IAVA calls for 20,000 new HUD-VA Supportive Housing vouchers, an increase in the Grant and Per Diem allowances for community organizations to help homeless veterans, and an extensive outreach campaign to promote VA home loan and financial counseling services. See recommendation 2.4.

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How we created our 2009 Legislative Agenda
In order to set our legislative priorities for 2009, IAVA conducted a poll of its Member Veterans. For more information, click here to read our '2009 Legislative Agenda Survey Results'.