Congress is considering one of the broadest veterans legislative packages in recent years: the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, introduced as H.R. 9237 in the House and S. 4744 in the Senate. The package combines more than 60 proposals involving disability compensation, military retirement, survivor benefits, caregiver assistance, mental-health care, education, VA staffing, infrastructure, and community care.
At its core, the legislation seeks to address long-standing gaps affecting combat-injured retirees, catastrophically disabled veterans, surviving spouses, family caregivers, and veterans who need specialized medical or mental-health services. Yet its size is also its challenge. A large omnibus bill can bring together priorities that have accumulated broad bipartisan support, but it can also combine provisions that deserve separate consideration and debate.
The Two Major Bills
The legislative discussion includes two related but distinct measures.
The first is H.R. 6047, the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act of 2026. Introduced by Representative Tom Barrett of Michigan, it passed the House on May 21 and was referred to the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee on June 2. The bill focuses primarily on financial support for catastrophically disabled veterans, survivors, and Gold Star families. It would also make certain Reserve and National Guard members eligible for VA home loans.
The second and much broader proposal is the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act: H.R. 9237 in the House and S. 4744 in the Senate. It incorporates H.R. 6047 along with the Major Richard Star Act, the Love Lives On Act, caregiver legislation, mental-health initiatives, health-care reforms, and numerous other provisions.
As of early November 2026, neither version has become law. On July 16, the House rejected a motion to recommit H.R. 9237 by a vote of 210 to 211, but leaders then postponed further proceedings before a final passage vote, and no new vote has been scheduled. The Senate version, S. 4744, has been on the Senate Legislative Calendar since June 11.
Ending the “Wounded Veteran Tax”
One of the most prominent features of the package is the Major Richard Star Act. This provision would allow certain combat-injured retirees to receive both full military retired pay and VA disability compensation.
Under current law, many veterans who were medically retired under Chapter 61 of Title 10 before reaching 20 years of service must offset a portion of their retired pay by the amount of VA disability compensation they receive. This is commonly called the “wounded veteran tax.” The policy creates a particularly difficult situation for service members who were forced from military service early because of combat-related injuries.
The Major Richard Star Act would address that inequity by providing concurrent receipt for qualifying combat-injured Chapter 61 retirees. Nearly 60,000 combat-injured veterans could benefit, according to Wounded Warrior Project.
This provision has been a priority for many veterans organizations because it addresses a straightforward fairness issue. A combat-injured veteran’s military retirement was earned through service, while VA compensation recognizes the lasting effects of service-connected injuries. Treating one benefit as a reduction of the other can leave severely injured retirees with less support precisely because they were unable to complete a full military career.
For many veterans, this is the centerpiece of the broader package.
Support for Catastrophically Disabled Veterans
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act also includes the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act, which specifically targets some of the most severely disabled veterans and their families.
H.R. 6047 would establish a supplemental monthly allowance of $833.33 for veterans who already qualify for aid and attendance because of service-connected disabilities or traumatic brain injury. That annualizes to approximately $10,000 in additional support for veterans with the most complex care needs.
These are veterans who may require help with the activities of daily living, extensive in-home care, specialized medical equipment, or continuous support from spouses and family caregivers. The additional allowance recognizes the extraordinary costs associated with catastrophic injury and illness, including lost income within the household, transportation, home modification, medical supplies, and caregiver strain.
The bill would also increase Dependency and Indemnity Compensation, or DIC, for eligible survivors. DIC is paid to survivors of certain veterans who died from service-connected conditions, service members who died in the line of duty, and some veterans who were totally disabled for specified periods before death. Under H.R. 6047, DIC would increase by an additional 1% at the next cost-of-living adjustment and an additional 0.5% at the following adjustment.
That increase may sound small, but survivor benefits have long been a concern for Gold Star families and surviving spouses, particularly those who have faced inflation and rising health-care, housing, and household expenses. Since 1993, DIC has only been increased by cost-of-living adjustments, according to the Military Officers Association of America (MOAA). The legislation is intended to provide a meaningful improvement after more than three decades without a comparable structural increase.
More Support for Survivors and Families
A third significant component is the Love Lives On Act, which is included in the broader package. This measure addresses the difficult situation faced by surviving spouses who can lose eligibility for certain benefits if they remarry. It would let surviving spouses keep DIC if they remarry, stop the Survivor Benefit Plan from ending payments to surviving spouses of service members who died on active duty solely because they remarry, and restore TRICARE eligibility for remarried widows and widowers whose later marriage ends.
The policy has long been criticized for forcing surviving spouses to weigh remarriage against the potential loss of benefits connected to a deceased service member’s sacrifice.
The broader package also includes provisions intended to improve support for family caregivers. Family caregivers often become the daily care system for veterans with traumatic brain injuries, spinal-cord injuries, severe mobility impairments, chronic mental-health conditions, and other complex needs. The bill would expand support and assistance for caregivers and includes provisions related to former caregivers, including health coverage, bereavement support, and workforce-transition assistance.
This is an important recognition that veterans’ benefits do not operate in isolation. When a veteran’s medical condition requires extensive care, the impact is carried by the entire household. Supporting caregivers is an essential part of supporting the veteran.
Health Care and Mental Health
Beyond compensation, the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act includes major health-care and mental-health provisions that could affect veterans in every community.
Among the proposals is the Veterans ACCESS Act, a large section of the bill that covers both community care and mental-health treatment programs. Among other changes, it is intended to improve admissions and screening for VA residential rehabilitation and treatment programs. These programs serve veterans with complex mental-health and substance-use needs. The legislation would establish more standardized screening and access processes to help ensure veterans are placed promptly into appropriate levels of care.
The package would also extend the Staff Sergeant Parker Gordon Fox Suicide Prevention Grant Program through September 2029 and expand VA mental-health research. It includes provisions related to brain health, women veterans, prosthetics, spinal-cord injury care, and specialized health services.
For rural veterans, veterans with transportation limitations, and veterans facing long waits for specialty care, the bill also addresses the Veterans Community Care Program. The legislation would codify eligibility standards and revise aspects of the program’s administration. Supporters see this as a way to improve timely access to care; critics are examining whether the language preserves a strong VA health-care system while using community care appropriately when VA cannot provide timely or accessible treatment.
This debate matters because veterans should not have to choose between a well-funded VA system and access to care close to home. A durable policy should strengthen VA’s direct-care capacity while ensuring that veterans can obtain high-quality community care when geography, specialty availability, or timeliness requires it.
Education, Employment, and Memorial Benefits
The package also contains provisions beyond disability compensation and health care. It would modify coverage for some independent-study programs under VA education benefits, require Transition Assistance Program counseling to include a presentation on VA benefits, and raise the first-year housing allowance for full-time apprenticeships and on-the-job training from 80% to 100% of the full rate.
Those provisions reflect the fact that a veteran’s transition doesn’t end with discharge. Education benefits, career training, apprenticeships, and effective transition counseling can determine whether a veteran enters civilian life with a viable path to long-term economic stability.
The bill would additionally expand eligibility for memorial headstones or markers for certain spouses, surviving spouses, children, and dependents of veterans or service members. While this may receive less attention than disability compensation or health care, it reflects Congress’s recognition that military service and sacrifice affect entire families.
In Short
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act brings together many provisions that have been developed through years of advocacy. The Major Richard Star Act, survivor-benefit improvements, catastrophic-disability support, caregiver reforms, mental-health access, and transition assistance all address identifiable gaps in the current system.
