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The House of Representatives passed a sweeping veterans benefits package on Wednesday, November 11, 2026 — Veterans Day — ending months of deadlock over how to pay for it and sending the legislation to the Senate.
The bill, H.R. 9237, the Take Care of America's Veterans Act, was approved by voice vote at about 2:46 p.m. Eastern, according to the House Clerk's floor record. It bundles more than 60 bipartisan bills aimed at expanding benefits and services for veterans, servicemembers, surviving families, caregivers and military families.
At the centre of the package is the Major Richard Star Act, which would allow combat-injured veterans who were medically retired before completing 20 years of service to receive both their full military retired pay and their VA disability compensation. Under current law, those veterans must give up part of one benefit to receive the other — an offset supporters call the "wounded veteran tax" that affects about 59,000 combat-wounded veterans.
The package also expands benefits for disabled veterans, increases support for surviving families, improves assistance for caregivers, raises housing allowances for veterans in apprenticeships and expands mental health services, according to the bill's sponsors.
The legislation was introduced on June 10, 2026, by Representative Mike Bost of Illinois, chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, and Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas, chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs. It also includes the Veterans ACCESS Act and the Love Lives On Act, among dozens of other measures.
The bill had been stalled since July. On July 16, a Democratic motion to send it back to committee failed by a single vote, 210 to 211, and House Republican leaders pulled the legislation from the floor rather than proceed to a final vote. On July 29, an attempt to pass the package in the Senate by unanimous consent was blocked.
Part of the dispute centred on a provision, Section 108, that would write into law the Department of Veterans Affairs' 2022 proposal to change how disability ratings are calculated for future sleep apnea and tinnitus claims. The Veterans of Foreign Wars and other veterans organisations opposed the change, arguing it would reduce benefits for future veterans to pay for the package. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York attacked the bill on Tuesday, saying Republicans were gutting veterans' care. Bost has said the measure "will not harm a single veteran" and is the only viable path to passing the Star Act.
Separately, Representative Mark Takano of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, and Representative Raul Ruiz of California used a discharge petition that gathered the required 218 signatures on September 15 to force a House vote on a standalone version of the Star Act without the rating changes.
The bill now goes to the Senate, which must act before the current Congress ends in January. Any legislation that fails to clear both chambers by then would have to start over in the next Congress.