When a loved one passes, no grieving family should be hit with an unexpected bill that the Veterans Administration should have covered.
Under current law, however, benefits from the VA covers burial and funeral expenses up to $800 for the surviving family of a veteran only if they were hospitalized at the VA at their time of passing.
Veterans have volunteered to give up their lives for our country. Current law does not honor that sacrifice. Instead, the law keeps veterans from benefits they earned and support their family needs based on a technicality.
That’s why I co-sponsored Gerald’s Law, which would expand eligibility of the VA benefit by applying the burial allowance to terminally-ill veterans who were discharged from receiving care at a VA hospital or nursing home to pass peacefully at the comfort of their homes under hospice care.
I will continue to fight to close all the unfair and illogical loopholes like this that far too often burden America’s veterans.
