Congressman Buyer Makes Key Contributions to Defense Bill

Press Release

Today the House approved the conference report for National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2008, H.R. 1585.

To address problems being confronted by wounded service members and their families, the conference report included a number of provisions from H.R. 1538, the Wounded Warrior Assistance Act. The conference report also included provisions similar to recommendations made by the Dole-Shalala Commission, and legislative initiatives of Ranking Member Steve Buyer (R-Ind.) that pertain to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

"I applaud the House and Senate conferees for including provisions that benefit veterans in their report," Buyer said. "Over the past fifteen years, one commission and task force report after another has called for measures to streamline the transition process, but such changes have not been implemented. This bill makes significant strides toward a truly seamless transition."

Among its numerous provisions, the conference report takes the following steps toward improving services for wounded servicemembers and veterans:

Wounded Warriors Act

-Requires the Department of Defense (DoD) and VA to jointly develop a comprehensive policy on the care and management of members of the armed forces, including the development of a system that allows for fully interoperable electronic exchange of personnel health information.
-Mandates the establishment of new DoD-wide standards for processing disability evaluations to reduce discrepancies between DoD and VA assessments, and to ensure consistent decisions among military departments.
-Requires a comprehensive policy to address traumatic brain injury (TBI), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), other mental health conditions and eye injuries, as well as the creation of centers of excellence focused on these conditions.
-Mandates that DoD and VA establish a standard for rating service members' disabilities that takes into consideration all medical conditions.
-Authorizes DoD to conduct pilot programs to examine methods for improving the disability evaluation system, and requires DoD and VA to jointly study the feasibility and advisability of consolidating the disability evaluation systems of the military departments and VA.

Veterans' Matters

-Requires VA to develop an individualized plan for the rehabilitation and reintegration of each veteran who receives inpatient or outpatient rehabilitation care for a traumatic brain injury:
-VA must provide such plan in writing to such individuals before discharge from inpatient care, following transition from active duty to the Department for outpatient care, or as soon as practicable following diagnosis.
-VA must develop and carry out a comprehensive program of long-term care for post-acute TBI rehabilitation at each VA polytrauma center.
-Authorizes VA to provide health care services through cooperative agreements with appropriate public or private entities with expertise in neurobehavioral rehabilitation and recovery programs when VA is unable to provide treatment or services at the frequency or for the duration prescribed in individual treatment programs.
-Authorizes three years of automatic eligibility for VA health care for veterans who served in a combat theater of operations and were discharged after 1998, but more than five years before the date of enactment of this Act, and have not enrolled in a VA health care program.
-Require VA to provide a preliminary general mental health assessment within thirty days for veterans who served on active duty served in a combat theater of operations during a period of war after the Persian Gulf War, or in combat against a hostile force after November 11, 1998.
-Extends from 90 to 180 days after discharge the application period for dental benefits for veterans.
-Requires VA, in consultation with the military service secretaries, to develop a process for the designation of a fiduciary or trustee of a member of the uniformed services insured against traumatic injury.
-Requires VA to establish a program on research, education, and clinical care to provide intensive neuron-rehabilitation to veterans with a severe traumatic brain injury, including veterans in a minimally conscious state who would otherwise receive only long-term residential care.
-Requires VA to, in collaboration with the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, carry out a pilot program to assess the effectiveness of providing assisted living services to eligible veterans to enhance the rehabilitation, quality of life, and community integration of such veterans.
-Requires DoD to conduct a clinical review of administrative separations based on personality disorder to determine whether the diagnosis of personality order is correct and fully documented, and to determine whether evidence of other mental health conditions (including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, or traumatic brain injury) resulting from service in a combat zone may exist.
-Requires DoD, in consultation with VA, to modify the Certificate of Release or Discharge from Active Duty (DD214) in order to permit a member of the Armed Forces, upon discharge or release from active duty in the Armed Forces, to elect the forwarding of the Certificate to the Central Office of the Department of Veterans Affairs in Washington, D.C., or the appropriate VA office in the state in which the member will first reside after such discharge or release.
-Authorizes DoD to support certain sporting events sanctioned by the U.S. Olympic Committee through the Paralympic Military Program. Limits funding for such events to $1 million per fiscal year.

Retired Pay and Survivor Benefits

-Expands eligibility for combat-related compensation to include disability retired service members with fewer than twenty years of service.
-Authorizes disabled retirees, who are considered totally disabled by VA for being unemployable, to receive full concurrent receipt of military retired pay and disability compensation effective January 1, 2005.
-Authorizes a monthly payment of $50 to surviving spouses who are denied the full amount of their survivor benefit plan (SBP) benefit because of concurrent receipt of dependency and indemnity compensation (DIC). The amount will be increased to $100 by 2014.

Reserve Benefits

-Establishes a national combat veteran reintegration program for reservists that will provide support to service members and their families before, during and after deployments. The centerpiece of the program will be post-deployment activities to help reservists reintegrate into their families and communities, making a wide variety of state and federal services available to families, and providing additional opportunities to screen service members for deployment-related medical or psychological needs.
-Authorizes payment of tuition assistance to certain members of the ready reserve who serve in critical occupational specialties and who agree to a specified period of additional service in the ready reserve.
-Allows educational assistance, in chapters 1606 and 1607, for members of the selected reserve, to be paid on an accelerated basis if the individual is enrolled in an approved program of education. The provision also expands the eligibility criteria for attaining the maximum educational benefits, of 80 percent of the active duty rate, under 1607 to also include three cumulative years of active service. Creates a buy-up program for service members eligible for the education benefit under 1607. This buy-up program would allow reservists to contribute up to $600 toward their educational benefit (made in multiples of $20). For every $20 contributed, a member gets $5 more per month. Therefore, if a service member contributes the maximum amount they will receive an extra $150 a month toward their education benefit.
-Allows members serving in the selected reserve of the ready reserve or in the ready reserve who are eligible for chapter 1607 to utilize their educational assistance during the ten-year period beginning on the date on which they separated. In addition, it would also allow servicemembers who have separated from a reserve component, who prior to separation were eligible for benefits under chapter 1607, to reclaim eligibility for those benefits upon joining a reserve component and to use those benefits for ten years following any subsequent separation. The effective date of this provision is October 28, 2004.
-Directs DoD, in cooperation with VA, to submit a report on the feasibility and merits of transferring the administration of the educational assistance programs for members of the reserve components contained in chapters 1606 and 1607 from DoD to VA.
-Requires DoD and VA to jointly submit to Congress a plan to maximize access to the benefits delivery at discharge program for members of the reserve components of the armed forces who have been called or ordered to active duty at any time since September 11, 2001.

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