The House on Monday by voice vote passed an omnibus bill (HR 2874) on health care for veterans, CQ Today reports (Yoest, CQ Today, 7/30). The legislation would require the Department of Veterans Affairsto provide outreach and mental health services to veterans of the warsin Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill also would require the VA secretaryto contract with community mental health centers to provide services toveterans who live in areas not sufficiently served by departmentfacilities.

In addition, the legislation would provide grants to service organizations to:

• Help transport veterans who live in remote areas;

• Allow the VA secretary to issue grants for therapeutic workshop programs;
• Expand counseling for veterans released from prison who are at risk for homelessness;
• Provide housing assistance to low-income veterans; and
• Make a treatment program permanent for participants in Department of Defense chemical and biological tests (Abrams, AP/Philadelphia Inquirer, 7/30).

The House on Monday also approved a bill (HR 2623)that would waive copayments for veterans who receive hospice care athome or in acute-care facilities, rather than in VA facilities (CQ Today, 7/30).

GAO To Study Mental Health Care

In related news, the Government Accountability Officein letters to Sens. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) and Ken Salazar (D-Colo.)announced plans to study whether DOD and VA provide adequate mentalhealth care for U.S. troops who return from the wars in Iraq andAfghanistan, the Denver Postreports. GAO plans to study VA care for veterans with mild traumaticbrain injury, pre- and postdeployment tests for mental healthconditions and brain injury performed by DOD, and adherence to policiesrelated to personality discharges. GAO expects to complete the study bythe end of 2007 (Emery, Denver Post, 7/31).

Editorial

"Happy endings are rare for government scandals, but [the] uproar over poor conditions" at Walter Reed Army Medical Center might "prove to be the exception," a Wall Street Journal editorial states. The editorial states that a presidential commission recently found the "main problem" with health care for troops andveterans "isn’t neglect or a lack of resources" but "the complexity ofthe federal bureaucracies that the injured have to negotiate."

Theeditorial praises a recommendation from the commission that a "federal’recovery coordinator’ be assigned to guide each seriously woundedwarrior through rehabilitation." The editorial states, "The commissionhas other valuable proposals," and President Bush has "called for themall to be implemented," adding, "Our main worry is that most are sosensible that Congress will mess them up" (Wall Street Journal, 7/30).

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