This week’s biggest veterans story is pretty straightforward:

The VA expects more veterans to file benefit claims, and it says it is hiring more than 2,000 people to handle them.

That announcement came after a year in which VA received a record number of claims, expanded its electronic medical-record system into two more major health-care markets, and put record funding into state and tribal veterans cemeteries.

There was also a small but important development inside the VA home-loan program involving the new Partial Claim system.

And our VA Rate Watch shows something veterans considering a purchase or refinance should know:

The VA mortgage market improved slightly again, but not dramatically.

So let’s get past the political noise and look at what actually happened for veterans between October 24 and October 30.

VA Plans to Hire More Than 2,000 Claims Processors

On October 29, the Department of Veterans Affairs announced plans to hire more than 2,000 additional employees during fiscal year 2027 to process veterans’ benefit claims.

VA says it already has more than 13,000 employees working in claims processing.

Why add another 2,000?

Because the volume keeps growing.

VA reported receiving more than 3.15 million claims submissions during fiscal year 2026, an increase of 80% compared with fiscal year 2022. The department processed a record 3.1 million compensation and pension claims during FY2026.

VA also reported:

60.1% of claims filed during FY2026 were granted.

Claims were processed with a reported accuracy rate of 93.88%.

More than 300,000 new veterans enrolled in VA health care during calendar year 2026.

Those are VA’s own reported performance figures, but the underlying message is clear:

More veterans are entering the system, and more claims are coming with them.

Hiring additional processors makes sense if that increased demand continues.

The real test will not be how many people VA hires.

It will be whether veterans continue receiving faster, accurate and fair decisions.

VA’s New Electronic Health Record Expanded Again

Another major VA project moved forward this week.

On October 24, VA deployed its Federal Electronic Health Record system at the Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center in Ohio and the Alaska VA Healthcare System in Anchorage, along with 16 associated clinics.

VA publicly announced the completed deployment on October 26.

According to the department, the Cleveland and Anchorage implementations bring more than 163,000 additional veterans and 7,800 staff members onto the new system.

Nationwide, VA says more than 780,000 veterans and 42,000 VA clinicians and staff are now using the Federal EHR.

The objective is something veterans should reasonably expect:

Their medical information should follow them.

VA says the system is intended to improve the transfer of military medical records into VA, integrate information from participating private-sector providers, reduce duplicate testing and improve continuity when veterans receive care at different facilities.

VA reports that it has now deployed the Federal EHR at 13 hospitals during 2026 and plans another 26 medical-center deployments in 2027.

There have been legitimate questions over the years about cost, implementation and performance of this system.

But this week’s development is concrete:

Two more major VA health systems are now operating on it.

Record Funding for Veterans Cemeteries

On October 27, VA announced that it awarded a record $106.5 million in Veterans Cemetery Grant Program funding during fiscal year 2026.

The money went to 21 cemeteries operated by states, territories and tribal nations.

The grants support things including:

Construction of new veterans cemeteries

Expansion of existing cemeteries

Maintenance and operational improvements

VA says this was the largest single-year funding total since the program began in 1980.

Since that time, VA reports more than $1.2 billion has gone to more than 120 cemeteries in 47 states, 14 tribal nations and three territories.

According to VA, the network now helps provide more than 94% of veterans living in the United States access to a veterans cemetery within 75 miles of home.

This is not the sort of veterans issue that normally generates a major headline.

But burial and memorial benefits are part of the commitment this country made to the people who served it.

That matters too.

A Small but Important VA Home-Loan Development

There was also movement this week inside the VA home-loan servicing system.

On October 27, the VA Loan Guaranty Service issued Circular 26-26-5, dealing with the VA Partial Claim Program.

The circular provides mortgage servicers with instructions for transmitting Partial Claim payments to VA through the federal Fedwire system.

That sounds extremely technical.

It is.

And veterans do not need to do anything because of this circular.

But it matters because the Partial Claim Program is one of VA’s newer foreclosure-prevention tools.

A partial claim can allow certain delinquent amounts to be separated from the veteran’s primary mortgage so the original loan can be brought current, subject to program eligibility and servicing requirements.

The October 27 circular does not change who qualifies or create a new borrower benefit.

It addresses the back-office mechanics mortgage servicers need to make the program function.

Sometimes successful government programs depend on very unexciting things like making sure the money actually gets sent to the right place.

This is one of those weeks.

One Oversight Concern Worth Watching

There was also one veterans-related oversight issue worth noting this week.

On October 27, Stars and Stripes reported that VA’s network of 27 federal advisory committees appears to be experiencing significant delays in meetings and appointments.

These committees bring veterans, caregivers, researchers, medical professionals and other stakeholders into discussions about specific VA programs and policies.

According to the Stars and Stripes review, fewer than half of the committees had published meeting minutes during 2026. The congressionally created Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses met only once during 2026 and canceled a planned September meeting because it did not have enough members for a quorum. Current and former members told the newspaper that vacancies and expired appointments have gone unfilled.

The same report described concerns surrounding the Advisory Committee on Women Veterans.

Ten House Democrats, led by Reps. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Veronica Escobar of Texas, wrote to VA Secretary Doug Collins stating that the committee had not met for nearly two years and had not submitted its legally required annual reports to Congress for 2025 and 2026.

That deserves attention.

These advisory committees exist so veterans and people directly involved in their care and benefits can provide feedback to the department.

But it is important to describe the issue accurately.

This is reporting by Stars and Stripes and a letter from ten Democratic House members raising concerns. It is not a congressional finding that VA committed wrongdoing.

VA told Stars and Stripes that it continues to recruit candidates for its federal advisory committees. The department did not explain to the newspaper why some committees had not been meeting.

This is something worth watching.

Veterans should have a meaningful voice in the programs designed to serve them, and advisory committees cannot provide that voice effectively if they cannot meet.

VA Rate Watch

Now to our standing look at the VA mortgage market.

Our benchmark is the Optimal Blue 30-Year Fixed Rate Veterans Affairs Mortgage Index, published through the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Optimal Blue calculates the index from actual locked mortgage rates and says its underlying data represents more than one-third of mortgage transactions nationwide.

It is a market benchmark, not an individual mortgage quote.

Latest VA Benchmark Available for This Review

October 29, 2026: 6.789%

One week earlier, on October 22:

6.915%

At the end of September, on September 30:

7.083%

That means the benchmark improved by about 13 basis points over the past week and is about 29 basis points below where September ended.

What Does That Mean?

Mostly this:

The VA mortgage market is gradually better than it was at the end of September, and this week produced another meaningful move in the right direction.

The benchmark moved down from 7.083% at September’s end to 6.789% in the latest FRED observation available for this review.

For someone buying a home, that can modestly improve the monthly payment and purchasing power.

For a veteran considering an Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan, or IRRRL, every decline moves some higher-rate borrowers closer to the point where refinancing may produce enough savings to make sense.

But that does not mean every veteran with a higher-rate mortgage should refinance.

The actual decision depends on:

Your existing rate

The rate actually available to you

Current loan balance

New monthly payment

Closing costs

Whether you are exempt from the VA funding fee

How long you expect to keep the mortgage

And a VA cash-out refinance requires a different analysis again because the new loan balance and amount of equity being accessed matter.

Optimal Blue’s public VA index does not separately report national purchase, IRRRL and cash-out averages.

So we will not pretend one benchmark represents three identical transactions.

We use it for what it does very well:

Showing us the direction of the overall VA mortgage market.

This week, that direction was modestly favorable.

Source: Optimal Blue Mortgage Market Indices via Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED. Latest verified observation available for this draft: October 29, 2026.

What It Means This Week

Put everything together and this was actually a productive week inside the VA system.

VA is preparing to hire more than 2,000 additional claims processors because benefit demand continues to rise.

More than 163,000 veterans in Cleveland and Alaska are now covered by the latest Federal Electronic Health Record expansion.

VA awarded a record $106.5 million to expand and maintain veterans cemeteries.

The Loan Guaranty Service continued putting the operational pieces of its new Partial Claim Program into place.

Questions have also been raised about whether VA’s federal advisory committees are meeting regularly enough and whether vacancies are being filled quickly enough for those committees to perform their intended role.

And the national VA mortgage benchmark moved lower again, reaching 6.789%, roughly 29 basis points below its late-September level.

None of those developments changes a veteran’s life by itself.

But together they tell us something useful:

Demand for veterans benefits is growing, the VA is trying to expand the capacity to serve that demand, and the systems behind veterans health care, housing and benefits continue to evolve.

Those are exactly the things The Give and Take is supposed to keep watching.

Not simply what somebody in Washington says they are going to do.

But what actually happened.

And what it means to the veteran on the receiving end.

About the Author

Clay Edmonds is the Corporate Educator and Complete Mortgage Advisor at Complete Mortgage LLC in Hollywood, Florida, and the creator of MortgageSimplified.net. With more than four decades of experience in real estate finance, Clay focuses on simplifying the mortgage process and helping veterans, borrowers and real estate professionals make smarter financing decisions.

clay@completemrtg.com

561-363-8174

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