White House press secretary Jay Carney briefs reporters in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013. Carney opened with remarks on Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki's testimony on Capitol Hill regarding veterans benefits and the partial government shutdown. WASHINGTON (AP) - The Obama administration, scrambling to tamp down a controversy over suspended death benefits for the families of fallen troops, announced Wednesday that a charity would pick up the costs of the payments during the government shutdown. The Defense Department typically pays families about $100,000 within three days of a service member's death, but officials say the shutdown was preventing those benefits from being paid. A senior defense official said the government could not actively solicit funds from private organizations but could accept an offer. The failure to make the payments has stirred outrage on Capitol Hill and at the White House. The Republican-led House unanimously passed legislation on Wednesday to restore the death benefits. Obama has threatened to veto other legislation passed by the House in recent days that would reopen individual funding streams, arguing that a piecemeal approach to ending the shutdown was unacceptable and that the entire government must be reopened. As of Wednesday afternoon, the Obama administration had yet to issue a formal veto threat for the death benefit bill. Before the government shutdown last week, Congress passed and Obama signed a bill allowing the military to be paid during the federal closure. A senior administration official said Obama raised his concerns about the stoppage in payments Tuesday night during an evening walk around the White House grounds with his chief of staff, Denis McDonough. He directed McDonough to get the problem solved within 24 hours. The Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget developed a solution overnight allowing Fisher House to enter into a rush agreement essentially making the organization a government contractor that could deliver the benefits, the official said. The administration and defense officials both insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the offer publicly by name. Amid the controversy, Hagel made a rare trip Wednesday to Dover Air Force Base for the arrival of remains of four soldiers killed in Afghanistan. The remains of every U.S. military member killed overseas are flown to Dover for processing. Family members attend the arrival, but the secretary of defense usually does not. The other soldiers whose remains were returned were 1st Lt. Jennifer M. Moreno, 25, of San Diego, Calif.; Sgt. Patrick C. Hawkins, 25, of Carlisle, Pa.; and Sgt. Joseph M. Peters, 24, of Springfield, Mo. In a statement Tuesday, U.S. Army Special Operations Command said Hawkins and Patterson were members of the 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, and Peters was a special agent assigned to the 286th Military Police Detachment. Hagel put his hand over his heart as white-gloved soldiers carried the flag-draped case carrying Patterson's remains from a C-17 cargo plane to a white panel truck for transfer to the Dover mortuary.