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House vote speeds fixes for wounded warriors

The House of Representatives passed the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act Wednesday in an effort to try to make the military’s medical and disability systems more friendly to injured combat veterans and their families.

In passing the legislation, HR 1539, House lawmakers ignored a White House request to delay the bill until the end of July, when the Bush administration might have some of its own plans for dealing with problems involving the lodging and treatment — both medical and administratative — of wounded service members, especially those who are on medical hold awaiting evaluations to determine whether they continue in uniform or are medically discharged or retired.

The bill passed by a vote of 426-0, making it difficult for the White House to blame Democrats for picking a fight.

“This bill ensures the military medical system is customer friendly and responsive to the needs of our injured warriors and their families,” said Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, the former chairman and now senior Republican on the House Armed Services Committee. “We create a toll-free number to call to report any deficiencies in medical support facilities. We also cap the number of cases that physical evaluation board liaison officers and medical care case managers may be assigned.”

Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y., described the bill as an “initial step” to address shortcomings in care, and promised there is more to come.

Problems uncovered at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, the Army’s flagship hospital, involving outpatients living in ill-maintained barracks who were having problems getting the care they needed is what helped get the bill passed so quickly.

But the problems addressed by the measure go beyond Walter Reed, said Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the House Armed Services committee chairman. Military medicine has been pinched from all sides, Skelton said, facing a bigger patient load because of the ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan while also living under cost-cutting measures that reduce budgets and convert some positions filled by military members to civilian slots.

“Fewer uniformed medical providers means fewer providers left at military hospitals back home treating injured and wounded service members,” Skelton said.

The bill orders improvements in medical and dental care for outpatients, including adding more case managers, advocates and ombudsmen to help injured combat veterans and their families maneuver through the military’s complex medical and physical evaluation board processes.

The bill also orders the creation of a formal process for transferring a patient from the military medical system to the Department of Veterans Affairs, something that Rep. Steve Buyer of Indiana, senior Republican on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said has been studied for more than 10 years and remains uneven.

The most controversial part of the bill is a one-year moratorium on contracting out any more jobs at military hospitals, something the White House says is a mistake that could end up hampering cost-cutting measures.

The bill now goes to the Senate, but a compromise on the provisions might come earlier because the Senate is including some similar proposals in its version of the 2007 wartime supplemental appropriations bill.

While President Bush has threatened to veto the appropriations bill because it includes language that would set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. combat troops from Iraq, some kind of war funding needs to be approved by summer.

Related reading:

Bush: Bill to improve vet care is premature