Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., is leading the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, a massive package of more than 60 bills that includes the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act. Bost, left, makes remarks during a hearing on May 19, 2026, as Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., looks on. (Eric Kayne/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — A plan to nearly triple a VA home loan refinancing fee in order to cover higher benefits for the nation’s most severely injured veterans is part of a nearly 600-page veteran benefits bill advancing in Congress.
The Take Care of America’s Veterans Act, a package of 60-plus bills prioritized by Republican lawmakers, includes a bill to provide a supplemental allowance of $833.33 per month — about $10,000 annually — to disabled veterans with catastrophic injuries and illnesses from military service.
That bill — the Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act — would nearly triple a VA home loan refinancing fee in order to boost benefits for the nation’s most severely injured veterans, including those with limb loss and traumatic brain injuries.
It is named for Sharri Briley, widow of an Army Black Hawk pilot killed in 1993 in Somalia, and for Eric Edmundson, a former Army sergeant who suffered shrapnel wounds, a heart attack and brain injury after his Humvee struck a roadside bomb in 2005 in Iraq.
Donvan Lee “Bull” Briley is shown with his wife, Sharri Briley, in 1984 at graduation from flight school. Briley was co-pilot of a Black Hawk Army helicopter shot down in Somalia during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. The legislation increases compensation for catastrophically wounded and ill veterans, and their survivors. (Briley Family)
The bill’s benefits, for veterans who require ongoing in-home medical care, would be financed by increasing an upfront fee on Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loans, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.
For a $325,000 home, the IRRRL flat funding fee, at .5%, equals $1,625.
By contrast, a 1.42% funding fee using IRRRL equates to a $4,615 program fee, according to Veterans United Home Loans.
Navy veteran James Nelson of Michigan said he has been considering taking out a second mortgage with an IRRRL to lower his monthly home loan payments.
“With this fee change in the works, I’ve been thinking about trying to refinance sooner,” said Nelson, a Vietnam-era veteran who served aboard submarines.
Nelson, a 72-year-old homeowner, said that he does not oppose the proposed fee change if the dollars go to help disabled veterans.
“I don’t have a problem with the fees going up, as long as it’s not for administrative nonsense,” Nelson said. “Increasing benefits for the most disabled [veterans] is a good use of the money.”
The bill also increases benefits by 1.5% over two years for the widowed spouses and other eligible relatives of service members killed in the line of duty or who died from their injuries.
It extends VA home loan eligibility to National Guard and Reserve members.
Pronounced “VA Earl,” IRRRLs is an exclusive VA-backed mortgage refinance program that lets eligible veterans, active-duty service members and qualifying spouses quickly refinance an existing VA loan for a lower-interest rate loan or a more stable payment structure, according to the VA.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, warned that the funding mechanisms in the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act “would have a staggeringly negative impact on future veterans.”
Blumenthal and other Democrats on the House and Senate VA committees have vehemently opposed paying for the cost of new benefits in the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act by slashing or restricting existing veterans benefits and services.
The package also would codify a 2022 proposal by the VA to revise the way sleep apnea and tinnitus are reviewed, according to the House VA committee.
Future disability payments for tinnitus and sleep apnea would be reduced to cover spending for other bills authorized in the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act.
The Sharri Briley and Eric Edmundson Veterans Benefits Expansion Act is just one of more than 60 bills bundled in the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act.
“We shouldn’t have to cut benefits from other veterans,” Blumenthal said.
The IRRRL is exclusively for veterans who already have a VA-backed mortgage. The program enables them to quickly lower their interest rates with minimal documentation, according to Veterans United Home Loans.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., and Rep. Mike Bost, R-Ill., are leading the Take Care of America’s Veterans Act. Both are the chairmen of their chambers’ Veterans’ Affairs Committees.
Bost has said that he would like to see the legislative package advance directly to the House floor for a vote, since most of the individual bills have been reviewed in committee.
The bill already has been placed on the calendar in the Senate.
It was filed under Senate Rule XIV, which allows legislation to be considered directly by the full chamber.
“I look forward to working with my colleagues to pass this legislation, so it can be signed into law and we can provide veterans the benefits and care they deserve,” Moran said.
