Two Veteran Support Bills Introduced
The Veterans Employment and Training (VET) Act of 2007 and the Lane Evans Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act — two bills to improve veteran education services and health care — were introduced Thursday. “The VET Act, introduced today [Thursday] by a bipartisan group of Senators led by Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), would help veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan to transition into the civilian workforce by making short-term, high-cost training programs more affordable for them. . . The Lane Evans Veterans Healthcare and Benefits Improvement Act (S. 117) requires the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) and the Department of Defense (DOD) to share data for greater accountability for veterans returning home and entering the VA system.”
Found here.
RTO Trainer
February 28th, 2007 at 11:16 pmI encouraged my Congressional delegation to vote against S. 117 – the Lane Evans Veterans Healthcare & Benefits Improvement Act.
It may seem strange that a serving Veteran and National Guardsman might oppose this bill. I do. While I do believe that every returning Soldier needs and deserves access to mental health counseling and that it should be provided compulsorily, I’m mindful that the VA has never been fully funded and this activity would naturally fall to them. In this light, S. 117 amounts to an unfunded mandate which would deprive other, just as deserving, Veterans of treatment, and further increase already unconscionably long delays.
I asked them not to fall into the “patriot trap,” that just because it’s for Veterans its a good thing. This bill trades on the desire to support the troops, but is particularly poorly thought through in it’s execution. Full funding of the VA, would be the correct course to take and a better use of the Congress’ time. Then if we think we can add more, so be it.
In addition, S. 117 contains requirements for a raft of reports on the use of Veterans’ benefits. This further exacerbates the funding problem and steals time from administrators already working beyond capacity. Supporters of the bill never mention this added and unnecessary burden.