Senate Committee Approves Five Bills To Improve Health Care For Veterans

Main Category: Veterans / Ex-Servicemen
Article Date: 02 Jul 2007 - 11:00 PDT

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The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee on Wednesday approved five measures aimed at improving veterans' health, CQ Today reports. The bills, passed by voice vote, include: an omnibus benefits measure (S 1315), a cost-of-living adjustment for veterans' benefits (S 423), expanded vision benefits (S 1163), a traumatic brain injury and omnibus health care bill (S 1233), and a suicide-prevention bill (S 479).

Under the suicide-prevention measure, the Department of Veterans Affairs secretary would direct an outreach effort to Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and their families and launch a campaign to discuss mental health problems among veterans. The legislation also would require VA to make mental health care available 24 hours a day (Yoest, CQ Today, 6/27). The suicide-prevention bill would place special emphasis on the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (Talbott, CongressDaily, 6/28). The House passed similar legislation (HR 327) on March 22.

The vision benefits legislation would provide additional compensation for veterans who have only partial sight in their second eye. Currently, disability compensation is given to veterans who are blind in one eye, and compensation increases if their visual acuity is 5/200 or less in the other eye. No compensation is provided if veterans have more serious impairment in the second eye. Under the new measure, the requirement to qualify for visual benefits for impairment in the second eye would be lowered to 20/200 or less -- the American Medical Association's standard for legal blindness.

The committee also approved a measure that would provide a routine cost-of-living increase in benefits next year for veterans with service-related disabilities. The measure also applies to dependency and insurance benefits for the families of disabled veterans. The percentage increase would be the same as for Social Security benefits, which will be calculated later this year.

In addition, the committee approved an omnibus benefits bill that would expand life insurance benefits for veterans and pay Filipino World War II veterans service-related compensation benefits at the full benefit rate for veterans who live outside of the U.S. The omnibus health care bill also would rescind a January 2003 regulation that prohibits the enrollment of "Priority 8" veterans -- those who do not have a service-related disability and have annual incomes greater than $27,790 -- in veterans' hospitals. The minimum income level for Priority 8 status is greater for veterans with dependents and veterans in areas with a high cost of living.

Reaction, Other Committee Actions
The Senate likely will approve by unanimous consent the vision benefits, cost-of-living adjustment and suicide-prevention bills after the July Fourth recess, but the two other bills might face floor debate because of Republican concerns, committee aides said.

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho), said that opening enrollment for Priority 8 veterans would jeopardize the quality of care and result in waiting times at VA hospitals for recently returned veterans who are in more urgent need of care. Craig estimated that the measure would allow 17 million additional veterans to be eligible for VA medical services, while Veterans' Affairs Committee Chair Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) said an additional 1.5 million veterans likely would enter the system because of the change. The committee voted 10-5 to reject an amendment by Craig that would have required a guarantee that the measure would not adversely affect lower-income veterans, service-disabled veterans and those who recently have returned from combat.

Craig also opposed the Filipino veterans bill, which he said would stretch the capabilities of the VA medical centers in the Philippines and would not take into account the lower cost of living in that country. The committee voted 6-8 to reject an amendment by Craig that would increase education benefits for National Guard and Reserve personnel and decrease proposed Filipino veteran pension benefits.

The committee by a 9-5 vote approved an en bloc amendment by Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) that would increase grants for disabled veterans to build adaptive housing and to purchase and retrofit automobiles to accommodate their disabilities (CQ Today, 6/27).

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