WASHINGTON (Jan. 6, 2025) — I am pleased to hear the news, along with more than 7.8 million transitioning servicemembers, veterans, caretakers, and survivors, that The Senator Elizabeth Dole 21st Century Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act, also known as the Dole Act, was officially signed into law by President Biden late last week.
The Dole Act will expand VA benefits, modernize healthcare delivery, and cut through much of the red tape that prevents veterans, caregivers and other beneficiaries from receiving the care and services they deserve. This new law will expand caregiver benefits for elderly and infirmed veterans; increase the cap for in-home care programs; fix community care options for veterans outside of the VA healthcare system; extend timelines, eligibility, and availability for certain GI Bill programs; and even provide funding for family caregiver mental health services and sheltering homeless veterans. Thanks to the hard advocacy work of VFW–Student Veterans America fellows getting the VFW-championed Not Just A Number Act included as a provision within this comprehensive package, we believe the Dole Act will also help reduce veteran suicide.
We commend those members of Congress whose dedication and leadership garnered the bipartisan support in getting this flagship, bicameral veterans package passed and to the president’s desk. While we are certainly grateful the Dole Act is now law, we are still perplexed at the lack of urgency in solving longstanding veterans’ priorities. Let’s not forget that veterans and their families suffer needlessly while waiting for members of Congress to stop playing to their party’s base and do the work they are depending on them to do.
Continuing to pass legislation like this signals to the more than one million service men and women in the Armed Forces, to include the thousands currently deployed to war zones throughout the Middle East and Horn of Africa, that Congress and the Administration will honor the contract which all service members and veterans signed.