VA must provide mental health care within five days for high-need veterans
H.R. 241 — Sergeant Ted Grubbs Mental Healthcare for Disabled Veterans Act · Filed by Rudy Yakym (R-IN) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Jan 9, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill amends veterans' healthcare law to require the Department of Veterans Affairs to provide hospital care, medical services, or extended care services for mental health conditions within five days of request for veterans with service-connected mental disorders rated at 50% disability or higher. It establishes a specific access standard aimed at reducing wait times for this vulnerable population.
Why we flagged it
The bill's sole operative mechanism is establishing a five-day access standard for VA mental health services for veterans with high-rated service-connected mental disorders. It is a straightforward public-health measure targeting a specific, high-need population.
What the text implies
- The five-day standard applies only to veterans with 50%+ disability ratings for service-connected mental disorders, leaving lower-rated veterans and those with non-service-connected mental health conditions outside the mandate.
- The bill does not specify enforcement mechanisms, penalties for non-compliance, or appropriations to support the five-day standard, leaving implementation and resource adequacy uncertain.
- The standard may create pressure on VA mental health capacity and staffing; if resources are insufficient, the VA may face compliance challenges or may need to redirect resources from other services.
Section numbers refer to the bill text the analysis read — linked under Primary records below.
Who it affects
Veterans with service-connected mental disorders rated at 50% or higher gain a concrete, enforceable right to mental health care within five days, addressing documented delays in VA mental health services. This directly improves access to care for a population at elevated risk of suicide and crisis.
Named in the bill
Department of Veterans Affairs, 38 USC 1703B, covered veterans with service-connected mental disorders
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Jan 9, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jan 9, 2025 — Referred to House Committee on Veterans' Affairs · Congress.gov: “Referred to the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
2 lobbying clients named this bill on 3 disclosure filings across 2 quarters, Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. Those filings disclosed $702,425 in lobbying spend. A filing names 169 bills on average, so that figure is what each filing reported, not a share belonging to this bill.
More lobbying clients named this bill than 41% of bills with at least one filing.
Rudy Yakym, the sponsor, reported $1,401,759 in PAC receipts in the 2026 cycle.
- American Psychiatric Association — $391,974 on 1 filing
- Disabled American Veterans — $310,451 on 2 filings
Lobbying Disclosure Act filings through Jul 21, 2026. A filing shows who paid to lobby on a bill it names, not what changed.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (723 characters) on Jun 8, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 16,222 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 21, 2026 · page rendered 2026-10-20.
“VA must provide mental health care within five days for high-need veterans” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/hr241 Report an error
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