Congress Passes Bill That Would Help Military Vets Begin Careers as Health Care Professionals

Press Release

Congress passed legislation today that included a section aimed at helping military veterans who are pursuing careers as civilian health care professionals.

Senators Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., and Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., introduced a bill earlier in the Congress aimed at helping military veterans who are pursuing careers as civilian paramedics. The senators worked to include the language in the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA), a bill designed to help combat the heroin and painkiller epidemic in America. The bill would ensure that veterans would be eligible to pursue a broad range of health care careers. The legislation is now on its way to the president's desk to be signed into law.

"This common sense provision would make it so vets can use the training and skills they learned in the military toward their professional health care credentials or licenses," Enzi said. "These brave men and women, who have done so much for this country, deserve the opportunity to continue to serve. This bill would make it easier for them to do that in the role of a health care provider, which is another noble calling."

This section of the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act (CARA) would help streamline state requirements and procedures to help veterans who received medical training while in the military to obtain the appropriate state credentials for a variety of health care related fields.

CARA would also require the Department of Health and Human Services to review, modify and update best practices for pain management and prescribing pain medication; and to examine and identify the need for, development of, and availability of medical alternatives to opioids.

Source