New Mexico, Texas Legislation to Reverse Veterans’ Home Healthcare Rate Cuts Introduced

NEW MEXICO—Newly introduced legislation aims to reverse rate cuts for veterans’ home healthcare services and require congressional notification of any future reductions. The National Defense Authorization Act’s Senate Amendment 6414, recently introduced by U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich and U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández, would restore funding for veterans’ homecare services in Texas and New Mexico slashed by the Trump administration at the beginning of the year. 

The Veterans Administration (VA) rate changes, which went into effect on Jan. 1 of this year, lowered reimbursement rates by as much as 43% for home health aide and homemaker services in rural areas in Texas and 19% for home health aide services in New Mexico. Homecare agencies in Texas and New Mexico have openly opposed these cuts, saying they are negatively affecting access to services for veterans in those states and could result in agency closures. 

The proposed amendment would reverse the reimbursement rate reductions and require the VA to notify Congress of any future rate reductions. Heinrich also has introduced a nearly identical standalone bill called the Protecting Home-Based Care for Rural Veterans Act (S 5027) to restore VA funding for fiscal 2027; companion legislation (HR 9752) was introduced in the House. 

“Homecare services are not luxuries,” said Heinrich. “They are earned benefits that allow disabled and elderly veterans to remain in their homes and live with dignity. The Trump administration has repeatedly refused to reverse its cuts to VA homecare reimbursement rates in New Mexico—denying veterans the care they have earned.”

Speaking during a July 9 webinar hosted by the Polsinelli law firm, Eric Reinarman, vice president of government relations for the Home Care Association of America, praised the amendment.

“It would restore reimbursement rates to where they were before those cuts,” Reinarman said. “Interestingly, it would also require the VA to consider factors in setting rates that they haven’t necessarily been doing before or that we’re not sure they were. They would use things like regional labor costs, workforce shortages, travel costs, geographic differences in different districts and other sort of real-world costs when establishing future rates for the homemaker and home health aid program.”