If Congress does not include extra funding for Department of Veterans Affairs medical services in an upcoming stopgap spending bill, the department will struggle to keep up with demand for care, administration officials are warning.

On a conference call with reporters Monday, VA officials confirmed they are asking Congress to include an extra $12 billion for the department’s medical budget in the upcoming stopgap spending measure — which must be passed into law by the end of the month — to ensure outreach to veterans and growth of the system can continue apace without compromising wait times and staffing levels.

“We have been on an unprecedented outreach campaign to get more veterans into the system,” Shereef Elnahal, the VA’s under secretary for health, said on the call. “So, if we have to be in a position to say, ‘Well, we can’t financially support the next set of veterans who can come into care, reduce their risk for suicide, get the highest quality care available,’ then that would be a decision that we don’t want to make. It’s not commensurate with the promise that we’ve made to folks who wore the uniform and defended our freedom.”

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With lawmakers returning to Washington, D.C., on Monday evening after a five-week break and just three weeks to go before the government runs out of funding, Congress is expected to pass a stopgap spending bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR.

Typically, a CR simply extends existing funding levels while preventing agencies from starting new programs. But lawmakers sometimes include what they call “anomalies” that allow for some new funding or programs.

For the upcoming CR, the White House has requested Congress include an anomaly that covers an expected $12 billion shortfall in the VA’s medical budget next year. If the funding isn’t included in a CR, “VA may need to begin addressing any potential shortfall as early as the first quarter of FY 2025,” the White House wrote in its request to Congress, a copy of which was published by Politico.

With the government’s fiscal year starting Oct. 1, the first quarter of fiscal 2025 represents the last few months of calendar year 2024.

The request follows the VA briefing Congress in July that it needed $12 billion more for its medical budget in fiscal 2025 than previously planned. While department officials have largely attributed the shortfall to record enrollment resulting from the sweeping toxic exposure law known as the PACT Act, they have also blamed higher-than-expected staffing levels, pharmacy and prosthetics costs, and community care costs.

The VA has also told lawmakers it is facing a $3 billion shortfall in benefits funding, and that benefits payments due at the beginning of October could be delayed if Congress does not approve a fix by Sept. 20. Lawmakers have been working to address the benefits funding shortfall in separate, stand-alone legislation.

Republicans have previously blamed the VA budget shortfalls on “mismanagement.”

“The Biden-Harris administration has embarrassed themselves with how poorly they have mismanaged and run VA’s budget into the ground, resulting in a $15 billion shortfall,” House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mike Bost, R-Ill., said in a statement Friday about a bill to address the benefits funding shortfall.

A draft CR released by House Republicans on Friday does not include the requested $12 billion for the medical budget shortfall. The measure, which would extend government funding through March 28, does include language that allows the department to use available funding to “maintain current program operations including inpatient and outpatient care and treatment to beneficiaries of the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

But House Democrats likened that language to the GOP “essentially saying, ‘Spend $0 as fast as you like.'”

“This would be laughable if not for the veterans that are faced with serious illnesses and simply need their medical care,” House Appropriations Committee Democrats said in a fact sheet released Monday.

The House Republicans’ CR is unlikely to become law as-is since it also includes a measure staunchly opposed by Democrats that would require proof of citizenship to vote. Republicans maintain the measure would safeguard against undocumented immigrants voting — something that is already illegal and shows little evidence of being an issue — while Democrats argue it adds a hurdle that could disenfranchise eligible voters. But the CR represents the GOP’s opening position in talks over the final product.

The White House issued a statement Monday threatening to veto the bill.

In its own fact sheet, the White House also argued that the House Republicans’ CR would force the VA to “undertake reductions in overall staffing levels that may impact access to care for veterans across clinical programs.”

“Veteran experience may be impacted across many different functional areas, including medical care scheduling and coordination, connecting homeless veterans to permanent housing, caregiver support, and other programs,” the White House said. “VA may need to scale back outreach efforts to veterans, which VA has been conducting at unprecedented levels to inform veterans of new benefits and health care enrollment opportunities under the bipartisan PACT Act.”

Elnahal acknowledged that there will be other opportunities for Congress to address the VA’s budget shortfall since lawmakers will still need to negotiate a comprehensive government funding package for 2025 after the CR. But, he maintained, the earlier the department gets the funding, the better.

“The earlier we get that funding, the less the chance that we have to consider some of the things that the White House mentioned in their fact sheet,” Elnahal said. “So, we do think it’s very necessary to get this supplemental in, and we think it’s necessary to get it in for this CR, because the earlier we get it, the better the decisions we’ll be able to make, and the more likely to be able to maintain and improve upon these excellent outcomes.”

Related: VA Warns Congress that Benefits Payments Are at Risk Due to Projected $15 Billion Budget Shortfall

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