Issue Position: Veterans

Issue Position

Our nation must fully honor the commitments that we have made to our veterans. Ensuring access to quality health care through the Veterans Administration (VA) health system, providing care and support to disabled veterans without delay, and sustaining educational and employment assistance are all essential.

Protecting Veterans Health:
Ensuring access to quality health care through the VA is one of the most basic commitments that we have made to those who have served our nation in the Armed Services. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have significantly increased the number of servicemembers and veterans in need of treatment for injuries and illness. These conditions include traumatic brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other related disabilities. In addition, we must respond more effectively to the troubling increase in suicides among our troops and veterans with sufficient funding for mental health care.

All veterans must know of the benefits available to them. Improved outreach, particularly to women, minority and rural veterans, will help ensure that all of our veterans receive the benefits that they have earned.

Supporting Disabled Veterans:
Disability benefits and care for those veterans injured during their service to our nation must not be delayed or denied. I strongly support increased funding to address the backlog of disability claims. In addition, I have long supported independent studies on the disabling conditions that many of our veterans struggle with. Those who are suffering the consequences of exposure to harmful chemical or biological agents must know that our nation will stand with them in their health battles, not impede their access to care and benefits.

Veterans Education:
I strongly supported the largest expansion of veterans' education benefits since the enactment of the Montgomery GI Bill in 1944. The new benefits increase aid -- tuition, books, and housing -- to military servicemembers, reservists, and National Guard members who serve on active duty after September 11, 2001. In addition, I strongly supported expanding these benefits by allowing them to be used for vocational training, on-the-job training and apprenticeships.

Dr. James Allen Disabled Veterans Equity Act:
Dr. James Allen, a Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Wisconsin and a doctor at the VA Hospital, brought to my attention the fact that veterans who suffered a service-connected blindness in one eye received no additional VA compensation when they lose vision in the other eye. Consequently, I introduced legislation to fix this inequity. In 2007, President Bush signed into law the Dr. James Allen Disabled Veterans Equity Act was signed into law in December 2007.

Women Veterans:
With a growing number of injured and disabled female veterans as a result of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, I believe we must recommit our nation to ensuring that our VA health system is capable of providing the care that these brave women deserve. Unfortunately, we know that women veterans often face barriers to quality care, and that we can go a long way to improve our identification, development, and dissemination of treatments for women veterans. I am especially concerned that our women veterans are receiving the care they need to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other conditions attributable to combat or sexual trauma. I firmly believe that our nation must honor the promises we have made to our veterans and the sacrifices those veterans made. Ensuring access to quality health care is one of the most basic of these promises.

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