Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. —This week, Congressman French Hill (AR-02) and Congressman Andy Kim (NJ-03) introduced H.R. 4360, the VA Overpayment Accountability Act, bipartisan legislation that would help veterans who have been unfairly targeted by debt collection agencies due to errors by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

“Too many veterans in my home state of Arkansas have suffered financially because of payment mistakes made by the VA,” said Congressman Hill. “It is unacceptable that the lives of our veterans can be turned upside down at no fault of their own. The VA Overpayment Accountability Act takes the burden off our veterans when the VA makes a payment error and protects their hard-earned monthly benefit checks and credit scores. Veterans should never have to pay such a heavy price for the VA’s mistakes.”

“We should be honoring our veterans, not sending debt collectors after them because the VA’s systems have failed,” said Congressman Kim. “I’m proud to introduce this bipartisan bill because our veterans are living paycheck-to-paycheck and they deserve a VA that works for them. After their sacrifice and what they’ve given to our country, holding the VA accountable for overpayments and protecting our veterans is the least we can do to say thank you.”


Background:

The VA Overpayment Accountability Act would directly address a rise in overpayments to veterans due to the current method of processing dependency changes and communications errors between outdated IT systems. Oftentimes, the VA attempts to recover these overpayments by withholding their monthly benefit checks. This directly impacts the estimated 1.4 million veterans nationwide who are struggling with poverty issues.

The VA Overpayment Accountability Act would ensure that veterans impacted by these errors could repair any damage to their credit scores and would require the VA to make improvements to systems proven to cause these harmful overpayments.

This June, Congressman Hill awarded the VA his Golden Fleece Award for billions of dollars in improper payments in Fiscal Year (FY) 2018.