Topic: Defense — Personnel Issues
Subject: Armed forces and national security
Date: 2016-05-19 00:00:00

VA Construction and Lease Authorization, Health, and Benefits Enhancement Act

This bill authorizes the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to enter into Veterans Care Agreements with certain providers to furnish hospital care, medical services, or extended care to eligible veterans if: (1) furnishing such care and services at VA facilities or under otherwise authorized contracts or sharing agreements with non-VA facilities is impracticable or inadvisable because of the veteran's medical condition, the travel involved, or the nature of the care or services required; and (2) the hospital care or medical services are not otherwise available from a non-VA health care provider.

 The VA shall ensure that each VA medical facility and community based outpatient clinic hosts a community meeting on improving VA health care.

 The VA shall begin a three-year pilot program to assess the feasibility of using wellness-based programs to complement veterans pain management and related health care services.

As part of the VA's hiring process for health care providers, the VA shall require from each medical board that licensed the provider information on any license violation and any settlement agreement for a medical disciplinary charge.

 The VA shall provide information on any violation of a medical license by a VA health care provider to each medical board licensing that provider.

 The VA may carry out specified major medical facility projects in California, Maryland, and Washington. Project appropriations are authorized.

 The VA may carry out specified major medical facility leases in Michigan, Alabama, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Virginia, California, Montana, Georgia, Maine, and North Carolina.

The Veterans' Benefits Programs Improvement Act of 1991 is amended to: (1) authorize the VA to sell Pershing Hall, in Paris, France, and transfer to the purchaser all right, title, and interest of the United States in the property; and (2) direct the VA to return to the entity from which the United States acquired Pershing Hall any personal property in the VA's possession, including memorabilia regarding General Pershing and the American Expeditionary Forces in France during World War I.

The VA may carry out specified leases at the VA's West Los Angeles Campus in Los Angeles, California.

The VA shall select a VA medical center to serve as the national center for research on the diagnosis and treatment of health conditions of the biological children or grandchildren of individuals exposed to toxic substances while serving as members of the Armed Forces that are related to such exposure.

 The Department of Defense shall conduct and make public a declassification review to determine what information may be made publicly available related to any known incident in which at least 100 members of the Armed Forces were exposed to a toxic substance that resulted in at least one case of a disability that an occupational medicine specialist has determined to be credibly associated with such substance.

The VA shall pay additional compensation to a veteran who is paid disability compensation for the anatomical loss, or the permanent or static loss of use, of one or more creative organs. (Creative organs are those involved in reproduction.)

The VA shall implement an information technology system that supports the program of comprehensive assistance for family caregivers.

 The cost-of-living adjustment for disability compensation is extended through FY2027.