Capitol Hill lawmakers are working to expand vaccine access for veterans and many of their caregivers with two new bills.
House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Mark Takano, D-California, and ranking member Mike Bost, R-Illinois, introduced a bill that would expand the Department of Veterans Affairs' authority to provide vaccines to all veterans and more caregivers. That bill was expected to reach the House floor on Monday. Senators have also introduced a similar bill, with some key differences.
Currently, only veterans enrolled in VA care are eligible to receive the vaccine from a VA facility, along with caregivers enrolled in its Program of Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers.
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The new legislation would extend vaccine eligibility to all veterans and any caregivers helping veterans who are enrolled in VA home-based or long-term care programs.
“If we want to defeat this pandemic, we must vaccinate as many Americans as possible—and do it quickly," Takano said in a statement. "VA should not have to turn away any veteran who walks through its doors to get a COVID-19 vaccine, regardless of whether they’re enrolled in or eligible for other VA healthcare services."
VA currently cares for roughly 9.5 million veterans, and the United States is home to more than 18 million total veterans. About half of all VA patients are older than 65, a population at elevated risk for infection, according to the CDC.
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“Getting vaccines into the arms of every person who wants one as soon as we can is key to finally getting us past this pandemic," Bost said. "In my mind, veterans should always be at the front of the line."
The new House bill would also give VA the authority to provide vaccines to veterans living outside the United States who are receiving care through VA's Foreign Medical Program, which includes thousands of veterans.
A similar bill also was introduced in the Senate on Monday, sponsored by Senate Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jon Tester, D-Montana, and ranking member Jerry Moran, R-Kansas.
That bill would not only expand vaccine eligibility to all veterans, more caregivers and veterans abroad like the House bill, it would also allow VA to vaccinate veterans' spouses and the spouses or children of permanently and totally disabled veterans or those who have died of service-connected disabilities.
Veterans enrolled in VA healthcare would continue to have priority for vaccination over other included veterans, caregivers and family members, under the bill, according to a news release from the senators.
“It’s pretty simple: we need to vaccinate as many Americans as possible to get through this pandemic and get our economy back on track,” Tester said. “That starts by making sure that every veteran has access to a vaccine, regardless of whether they’re enrolled in VA health care or not."
“Military service impacts not only our servicemembers but their spouses, families and support networks, and it is why the VA and this committee aim to care for both veterans and their families,” Moran said.
The Senate bill also specifically urges the Department of Health and Human Services to adjust VA's vaccine allocation based on the increased eligibility pool it would create. Neither of the bills can create additional supply of vaccine doses, and supply has been the biggest hurdle for VA so far. The department has already administered nearly 2.8 million vaccines nationwide, including nearly 2.3 doses to veterans.
Last week, the department received a major increase in its coronavirus vaccine supply, up roughly 380% from prior deliveries.
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VA has the capacity to deliver 300,000 to 600,000 vaccine doses per week, Acting Undersecretary for Health Dr. Richard Stone told Congress recently, but severely limited supply has frustrated the department's efforts to deliver more vaccines. Some VA Medical Centers have also run out of vaccines completely, according to department communications.
While VA has the capacity to administer more vaccines than it has been receiving so far, Stone said massive healthcare system faces major challenges shipping vaccines to rural and remote areas, a major concern for lawmakers. But the department has also detailed several success stories, including using smaller private contracted aircraft to deliver vaccines to remote areas of Montana and Alaska.
The Food and Drug Administration's emergency authorization for the Johnson & Johnson single-dose vaccine, which does not require the stringent cooling of the Pfizer and Moderna two-dose vaccines, also could greatly increase the department's ability to deliver more vaccines. VA began receiving shipments of the J&J vaccine last week.
"We are very hopeful with the new vaccine ... that we will continue to see increases and the problems we are having with the amount of vaccine will resolve itself over these next number of weeks," Stone said.
Each medical center within the sprawling department -- America's largest healthcare system -- has a different supply of vaccines depending on need, and is distributing them to different priority groups, including those 75 and older, 65 and older, those with pre-existing conditions putting them at greater risk and those who are essential workers. Some medical centers have opened eligibility up to younger veterans, and some have held mass vaccination events for all eligible veterans.
Department leaders emphasized an effort to distribute the vaccine doses equitably to veterans of color, a population disproportionately affected by the pandemic.
So far, VA has not seen racial or ethnic disparities in vaccinations so far. Among vets 75 and older, 25% of white, 28% of Hispanic and 30% of Black veterans have been vaccinated, Stone told lawmakers last week.
As of March 8, VA had about 5,300 active cases of the virus among its patients, and more than 10,700 VA patients and 133 VA employees had died because of the virus since the onset of the pandemic.
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Reach Abbie Bennett: abbie@connectingvets.com or @AbbieRBennett.
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