Bill Seeks to Increase Enrollment in VA System

A new bill aims to hold the federal government responsible for making sure an estimated 720,000 New York veterans get the benefits they’re entitled to receive. U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., announced this week that the bill she’s introducing would require the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs to “proactively inform” all new veterans of available VA benefits and provide all required application forms.

Veterans are eligible — sometimes depending on the time and nature of their service, sometimes not — for a wide range of discounts and perks, chief among them being enrollment in the nation’s VA health care network. In a statement, Gillibrand says that out of 113,351 veterans in Western New York’s eight counties, about 81,468 are not receiving health care benefits.

“If they don’t hook up with the Department of Defense, how are they ever going to know who these veterans are?” asked Dale Schnackel, director of the Niagara County Veterans Service Agency, which itself works tirelessly to identify and serve veterans in the region.