Veterans have faithfully served their country, but often face obstacles when returning home from war or transitioning to civilian life. Despite recent legislative reforms, veterans still struggle with access to timely and effective healthcare. Lasting improvement in this area will require objective, reliable research to inform policy decisions and ensure reform is not based on anecdotes or insufficient information. To that end, the Charles Koch Foundation is pleased to launch this request for proposals for grants to support research and other activities that will enable social entrepreneurs to improve veterans’ healthcare.
With this in mind, we are actively soliciting proposals in these categories for projects that:
- Assess the Veterans Affairs healthcare system and possible Federal and private sector healthcare alternatives and models (such as the Federal Tricare [Prime, Select, For Life], the Federal Employee Health Plan, and the private sector Kaiser Permanente) in order to compare and contrast these systems in terms of costs, accessibility, outcomes for veterans’ health, or other relevant criteria.
- Provide an independent assessment of the costs of the current VHA healthcare system and the fiscal impact of alternative VA healthcare models which include more healthcare choice such as Commission on Care recommendation #1.
- Analyze the use and non-use of the VA healthcare system by veterans, including the reasons why veterans and caregivers sometimes choose to use independent insurance that costs them more.
- Examine the eligibility and benefit structure and design of the VA healthcare system to update and modernize the 1996 system for veterans and identify who VHA will serve and what services it will provide.
- Explore opportunities to expand accountability at the VA beyond termination reform to address the whole VA performance management system including, but not limited to, internal practices related to recruitment, retention, hiring, performance appraisals, and improving the internal incentive structure to ensure improved health outcomes for veterans.
- Provide an independent assessment of the quality of VA healthcare versus private healthcare.
Grant Criteria
- A two-to-five page abstract of the project on behalf of your university or college. The abstract should provide sufficient detail for reviewers to assess the nature and feasibility of the idea.*
- A CV or résumé.*
- A brief, itemized budget.*
- Final projects should be original and meet the highest standards of their field and must not have been previously published.
*Items are required in application.
Funding
Funding levels are commensurate with the requirements of the research and the potential for the research to advance an understanding of critical issues. Accepted proposals may also receive support to disseminate the research findings.
Review & Notification Process
Proposals will be accepted and evaluated on a rolling basis.