New Veterans Bill Funds Brain Treatment Pilot Solely with Donations, Extends Pension Limits to 2034

The newly proposed Veterans National Traumatic Brain Injury Treatment Act is a mix of experimental healthcare access and administrative extensions. The core of the bill establishes a three-year pilot program to offer Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) to veterans diagnosed with Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). HBOT is a treatment where patients breathe pure oxygen in a pressurized room, and while it’s been studied for these conditions, its efficacy is still being debated in the medical community. The bill mandates that this treatment be offered in only two Veterans Integrated Service Networks (VISNs) across the country.

The Catch: Funding a Federal Program with a Tip Jar

Here’s where it gets complicated: The entire pilot program, including the cost of the HBOT treatments, is only funded by private donations. The bill creates a special, non-expiring VA HBOT Fund in the Treasury, but it explicitly states that the fund can only be filled by donations received specifically for this purpose (Sec. 2). For the average veteran, this means access to this potentially life-changing therapy is completely dependent on the success of private fundraising, not on stable federal appropriations. If the donations dry up, so does the program, which creates massive uncertainty for the two selected VISNs and the veterans relying on the treatment.

Access Lottery and Quality Control

If you’re a veteran with TBI or PTSD, whether you can access this pilot program is essentially a lottery based on where you live. Since the program is limited to just two VISNs, the vast majority of veterans nationwide will be excluded, meaning they’ll need to seek treatment elsewhere, likely at their own cost. On the plus side, the bill does set high standards for the treatment centers, requiring them to be accredited by the Joint Commission, the Undersea and Hyperbaric Medical Society, or another group the VA Secretary approves (Sec. 2). This ensures that the care provided, however limited in scope, meets established quality benchmarks.

Keeping an Eye on the Science

Beyond the pilot, the bill tasks the Government Accountability Office (GAO) with updating its 2016 report on HBOT for TBI and PTSD (Sec. 3). This is important because it forces the VA and Department of Defense to report on all the clinical trials they’ve run since 2016. For veterans considering this treatment, or for the doctors who treat them, this update will provide the most current, objective data on whether HBOT actually works, ensuring that future policy decisions are based on the latest science.

Extending the Pension Clock

Finally, the bill includes a provision that has nothing to do with brain injuries or oxygen tanks: it extends the expiration date for certain existing limitations on veteran pension payments (Sec. 4). These limits were set to expire in November 2031, but this bill pushes the sunset date out to October 2034. While the bill doesn’t create a new restriction, it maintains the existing cap on certain pension payments for an additional three years. For veterans who are subject to these limitations, this extension means those restrictions—and the potential financial impact they carry—will stay in place longer than originally scheduled.