Veterans Affairs

The United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is a federal Cabinet-level agency that provides integrated life-long healthcare services to eligible military veterans at the 1700 VA medical centers and outpatient clinics located throughout the country. Non-healthcare benefits include disability compensation, vocational rehabilitation, education assistance, home loans, and life insurance; and provides burial and memorial benefits to eligible veterans and family members at 135 national cemeteries.

While veterans benefits were provided by the Federal Government since the American Revolutionary War, a veteran-specific federal agency was not established until 1930 as Veterans Administration. In 1982, its mission was extended to a fourth mission to provide care to non-veterans and civilians in case of national emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020.^[1]. In 1989 the Veterans Administration became a cabinet-level Department of Veterans Affairs.

The VA employs^[when?] 377,805 people^[2] at hundreds of Veterans Affairs medical facilities, clinics, benefits offices, and cemeteries. In Fiscal Year 2016 net program costs for the department were $273 billion, which includes VBA Actuarial Cost of $106.5 billion for compensation benefits.^[3][4] The long-term actuarial accrued liability (total estimated future payments for veterans and their family members) is $2.491 trillion for compensation benefits; $59.6 billion for education benefits; and $4.6 billion for burial benefits.^[5]

The agency is led by the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, who, being a cabinet member, is appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate.^[6][7]

History

The history and evolution of U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is inextricably intertwined and dependent on the history of America's wars, as wounded soldiers is the population the VA care for. The list of wars involving the United States from the American Revolutionary War to the present totals ninety nine wars. The majority of the United States military casualties of war, however, occurred in the following eight wars: American Revolutionary War (est. 8000), American Civil War (218,222), World War I (53,402), World War II (291,567), Korean War (33,686), Vietnam War (47,424), Iraq War (3,836), War in Afghanistan (1,833). It is these wars that have primarily driven the mission and evolution of the VA. The VA maintains a detailed list of war wounded as it is the population that comprises the VA care system.^[8]