WASHINGTON — President Trump signed a sweeping law Wednesday aimed at expanding veterans’ access to private-sector health care. But behind the scenes his administration is fighting a bipartisan Senate effort to fund the legislation.
The VA Mission Act authorizes new programs for veterans, but the bill does not reserve federal money to pay for those programs. A group of powerful Senate committee chairmen aims to remedy that by amending a separate measure to pay for the new $50 billion law, saying that adding the funds is the best way to ensure the new programs give veterans access to medical care.
But the White House has engaged in a quiet effort to thwart the senators’ plan, encouraging lawmakers to vote it down and instead asking Congress to pay for the veterans programs by cutting spending elsewhere.
White House officials are circulating a memo on Capitol Hill this week that slams the senators’ proposal as ‘‘anathema to responsible spending’’ and that predicts it would lead to ballooning costs and ‘‘virtually unlimited increases’’ in veterans’ spending on private health care.
‘‘Without subjecting the program to any budgetary constraint, there is no incentive to continue to serve veterans with innovative, streamlined, and efficient quality of care,’’ the administration says in the memo.
Senator Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who heads the Senate Appropriations Committee, argued that if Congress does not ratify his proposal, the alternative could be to cut $10 billion a year for five years from existing programs, including initiatives within the Veterans Affairs Department.
‘‘If we don’t get on it we’re going to have a hole of $10 billion in our approps,’’ Shelby said Tuesday, predicting ‘‘some real trouble.’’
Shelby is joined in his effort by the top Appropriations Committee Democrat, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, as well as the leaders of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Chairman Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia and Jon Tester, Democrat of Montana. Their coalition reflects a renewed commitment in the Senate to completing spending bills on a bipartisan basis after years of budget dysfunction.
Their effort has run into stringent opposition from a White House still reeling from conservative backlash to the $1.3 trillion government-wide spending bill Trump signed in March. The deal broke through previous spending caps with huge increases in domestic spending Democrats demanded in exchange for military spending sought by Republicans.
Conservatives publicly slammed the spending package and criticized Trump for signing it, and the administration has subsequently dug in against new spending.
Trump frequently touts his support of veterans and members of the armed services, promising during the campaign to fix VA and give more veterans access to private health care. Aiming to keep those promises, veterans programs are one of the few areas aside from the military where Trump has encouraged new spending.
But the White House says it won’t accept new spending on the veterans bill above the overall domestic spending levels already negotiated with Congress, arguing enough money can be found to fund it within existing budget limits.
‘‘The president’s 2019 budget supports a new, consolidated community care program for veterans and all of VA health care within the discretionary caps already in place. We have a responsibility to provide our veterans with the care they deserve, while also being good stewards of the taxpayer dollar,’’ the administration said in a statement.
The VA spending fight could come to a head as soon as this week, as lawmakers prepare to take up a military construction and VA appropriations bill that the bipartisan group of chairmen want to use to fund the VA Mission Act’s program.
It could be a preview of spending fights to come, with the next government shutdown deadline looming on Sept. 30, just ahead of the November midterm elections.
