Congressman Kim Introduces Bills to Protect and Honor Veterans

Statement

Today, Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03) announced the introduction of two bills to help veterans around Veterans Day. These two pieces of legislation would protect vets from payment errors by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and help state-run veteran cemeteries properly honor those who served our nation.

"Our veterans have sacrificed so much to protect us in service of our country; the least we can do is to fulfill the promises we made to them when they signed up to serve," said Congressman Kim. "These bills will keep our veterans from being unfairly targeted by debt collection agencies and help our state veterans agencies properly honor those who sacrificed for our nation. I am proud to work with Congressman Hill and Congressman Kahele on these important bills, and I look forward to working with my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to pass these common-sense measures."

H.R. 5931, the VA Overpayment Accountability Act

This bipartisan legislation, introduced with Congressman French Hill (AR-02), would address overpayments to veterans due to changes in eligibility, antiquated VA technology, and internal communication errors between IT systems. Oftentimes, the VA attempts to recover these overpayments by withholding monthly benefit checks, which can be devastating for veterans living on fixed incomes. The bill would require the VA to remove errors from veterans' credit reports to repair any damage to their credit scores. It would also require the VA to improve the IT systems that cause these harmful overpayments.

"The VA has long suffered from payment errors that have placed a financial burden on central Arkansas veterans and their families at no fault of their own," said Congressman Hill. "I'm proud to introduce the bipartisan VA Overpayment Accountability Act alongside my friend, Rep. Andy Kim. This important bill will take a step toward addressing the longstanding payment errors at the VA, protect our veterans' hard-earned monthly benefit checks and credit scores, and ensure our veterans receive the financial and medical benefits they have rightfully earned in defense of our nation."

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