Veterans healthcare exempt from budget cuts

Vets health care exempt from sequestration cuts
By Rick Maze -
Staff writer
Posted : Monday Apr 23, 2012

Funding for veterans’ health care programs is not subject to sequestration, the White House budget office announced Monday, ending months of speculation about how across-the-board budget cuts could be applied early next year if Congress cannot find a way to avoid fiscal disaster.

Sequestration, looming because Congress and the White House failed to reach an agreement on a 10-year, $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan, also will not cut veterans’ benefits, leaving only administrative expenses of the Veterans Affairs Department potentially subject to reductions, according to legal opinion issued Monday by the White House’s Office of Management and Budget.

The announcement came in a letter to the Government Accountability Office, which had asked the White House for clarification about the automatic cuts’ effect on VA.

The Budget Control Act of 2011, which set up mechanism for cutting federal programs if a deficit spending agreement wasn’t reached, specifically exempted veterans’ benefits but had no clear statement about what might happen to veterans’ medical care expenses. read more here