The House on Thursday overwhelmingly passed a multibillion-dollar bill that would fully fund a key retirement benefit for combat-injured veterans with disabilities, but the measure’s fate in Congress was uncertain amid a dispute over how to pay for it.
Republican leaders moved to sidestep the disagreement on Wednesday by speeding through a competing measure before Democrats had a chance to try to defeat it. That bill, the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, addresses the retirement pay change and a wide range of veterans programs, all financed by future cuts in benefits for sleep apnea and tinnitus, two conditions that often afflict combat veterans.
The narrower version that passed on Thursday, by a lopsided vote of 392 to 18, was forced to the floor by Democrats and would omit those cuts. All Democrats and 181 Republicans backed it.
The competing bills each face steep obstacles in the Senate. Senator Jerry Moran, Republican of Kansas and the chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said he supported the Republican-led package, whereas Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, the senior Democrat on the committee, said he could not back the proposed benefit cuts.
Central to the dispute is the Maj. Richard Star Act, which would allow veterans who retired because of combat-related disabilities to receive their full retirement pay, rather than having it reduced dollar-for-dollar by their disability benefits, as required by current law.
Veterans groups have long lobbied for the Richard Star Act, but over the years, lawmakers have repeatedly balked at its cost, recently estimated by the Congressional Budget Office to be about $12.8 billion over a decade.
House Republicans have argued that pairing the Richard Star Act with the sleep apnea and tinnitus cuts in the broader Take Care of America’s Veterans Act would get the provision across the finish line. But for months, retired service members and some powerful veterans groups blasted the package, saying it pitted veterans with disabilities against one another.
The blowback was forceful enough that Republican leaders, attempting to pass the package over the summer, had to pull it from the floor when it became clear they lacked the votes.
The same leaders were able to push it through on Wednesday only after Democrats failed to notice that Republicans had called a vote on it on the House floor. Waiting only six seconds, during which no Democrat requested a recorded vote, they declared the bill passed on a voice vote — a highly unusual move given the standard House practice of allowing opponents the chance to ask for a recall.
Members of both parties had been uncertain whether a majority of the House would be willing to go on the record supporting a measure that cut future benefits. The voice vote allowed it to pass without any lawmaker having to do so.
Representative Mark Takano of California, the ranking Democrat on the Veterans Affairs Committee, accused Republicans of deceiving Democrats by asking him to leave the House floor to review technical changes to the bill, then calling for its passage when he was not present to demand a roll-call vote.
“Republicans chose yesterday, on Veterans Day of all days, to sneak through the largest cut veterans benefits in history,” he said on Thursday. “They knew they didn’t have the votes to pass their bill. So on a highly partisan vote, they resorted to depriving veterans of the honest, fair and transparent process that they deserve.”
Representative Mike Bost of Illinois, the Republican committee chairman who sponsored the veterans package, denied Mr. Takano’s claim.
“There have been rumors from my Democrat colleagues accusing House Republicans of passing my bill through some backdoor deal,” Mr. Bost said. “Nothing could be further from the truth.”
While many Democrats opposed the Republican bill, Mr. Takano’s competing legislation, a stand-alone version of the Richard Star Act that excluded the sleep apnea and tinnitus cuts, drew substantial Republican backing.
That bill came to the floor after a handful of Republicans joined Democrats in working around Speaker Mike Johnson, signing onto a discharge petition that speeds legislation to the floor if a majority of House members demand it.
Representative Gus Bilirakis of Florida, a Republican who has long pressed for the Richard Star Act, did not sign the discharge petition, but voted in favor of Mr. Takano’s bill.
“I promised Maj. Richard Star that we would do everything we possibly could to get this bill across the finish line,” he said of the bill’s namesake, who before dying in 2021, pushed for the policy change after retiring from the Army because of cancer that he developed in the Middle East.
Representative Maxine Dexter, an Oregon Democrat and physician serving on the Veterans’ Affairs committee, said she had seen too many patients with tinnitus and sleep apnea at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals to justify the cuts.
“If we are not supporting that for our veterans, I don’t know what in the world we’re doing,” she said. “These are conditions as a result of their service.”
Republican lawmakers have pressed their members to oppose Mr. Takano’s proposal, arguing that benefit cuts would help pay for a more substantial veterans-spending package, which included the Richard Star Act. The Republican package would fund dozens of other veterans programs, from expansion of mental health care benefits to service dogs.
Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican who served as a Navy SEAL and was wounded in combat, said on Wednesday that he supported the Richard Star Act, but grew frustrated that the sleep apnea and tinnitus cuts were standing in the way of what he saw as important veterans package.Mr. Crenshaw did not vote on Mr. Takano’s bill on Thursday.
Mr. Crenshaw described the benefits for sleep apnea and tinnitus as “absurdly high” and said such assistance should have been changed long ago. He also criticized powerful veterans groups, specifically the Veterans of Foreign Wars, for lobbying lawmakers to oppose the Republican bill.
“Happy Veterans Day to everyone except the leadership of the V.F.W.” he said outside of the House chamber.
