Brain Injury Blog | Traumatic Brain Injury TBI

Also this week, both chambers of Congress held important hearings on efforts to improve health care for returning service members, as well as to improve the veterans’ disability benefits system. BIAA submitted questions and comments in relation to several of the hearings.

The Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on “Care for Sick and Wounded Service Members” on Tuesday, February 13. BIAA submitted questions for the hearing regarding TRICARE coverage of cognitive rehabilitation.

On Thursday, he House Veterans Affairs Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee held a hearing on the VA’s disability claims system. BIAA submitted its recent Comment Letter on a Proposed Rule by the Department of Veterans Affairs to overhaul the Schedule for Rating Disability related to TBI to the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.

To view a copy of BIAA’s Comment Letter to the VA, please visit our website at http://www.biausa.org/policyissues.htm.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS-Ed) held a hearing on Thursday on this year’s proposed budget for the Department of Health and Human Services, featuring HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt as a witness. At the same time, BIAA signed on this week to a coalition letter to the Subcommittee urging its Members to provide $30 million for TBI Act programs this year.

BIAA also signed on to a coalition letter urging Members of Congress to increase funding for all aspects of public health included in the Function 550/discretionary budget allocation in Fiscal Year 2009 by $5.3 billion.

The letter states:

“Our nation struggles with escalating health care costs, growing numbers of uninsured, and the prospect of declining health measured by overall morbidity and mortality. The President’s budget for FY 2009 continues to seriously underfund and undermine an important part of the solution: public health activities and programs…The undersigned organizations urge you to increase funding for all aspects of public health…by an amount that will: 1) restore funding cuts to public health programs enacted in FY 2006; 2) restore lost purchasing power that flat-funding for at least five years has eroded and 3) provide investments that begin to truly meet health challenges facing the nation.”

The three federal agencies charged with implementing TBI Act programs – the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) – received either flat or significantly decreased funding in the President’s Budget.

A key legislative priority for BIAA this year is to work to prevent any cuts in funding for TBI programs from occurring and to instead achieve a significant increase in federal support for TBI programs. Stay tuned for BIAA Legislative Action Alerts regarding TBI-related appropriations.

Negotiations continued this week over an economic stimulus package, as the House passed its version of the bill, which represents a compromise with the Bush Administration. This version does not include increases in Medicaid payments to states, which BIAA strongly supports.

Last week, BIAA signed on to a coalition letter urging House and Senate leaders to temporarily raise Medicaid reimbursement to states in order to prevent states from being forced to make cutbacks in essential state services. Such essential Medicaid services include health care and long-term services and supports, which are often especially important to individuals with disabilities.

As Senate negotiations go forward next week, BIAA will continue advocating for the inclusion of provisions in the stimulus to raise Medicaid reimbursement rates to states.

President Bush signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 4986), containing important wounded warrior provisions related to TBI care which BIAA actively lobbied for last year, into law on Monday.

One of BIAA’s policy goals for 2008 will be to monitor the implementation of the important TBI provisions contained in this bill. (The December 14, 2007 edition of Policy Corner contains more detailed information on these TBI provisions. You can access this issue, as well as all other archived issues of Policy Corner, by visiting BIAA’s webpage at http://www.biausa.org/policycorner.htm).

In a related development, Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) expressed disappointment that the President did not publicly acknowledge the full implications of the wounded warrior provisions contained in this bill. Hours after signing the bill, in his State of the Union speech, President Bush called on Congress to enact recommendations made by the Dole-Shalala Commission to “improve the system of care for our wounded warriors.” Yet, many of the Commission’s recommendations were addressed in the defense authorization bill.

“It’s kind of surprising, and I think it creates an impression that there’s work that’s still ahead of us, when much of it was done in record time,” Levin said, in a Jan. 30 article in CQ Today.

According to CQ Today, in response to Sen. Levin’s comments, the White House pointed to a major revision of the veterans’ disability system which remains to be acted upon.

The study is the military’s first large-scale effort to gauge the effect of mild head injuries that some experts worry may be causing a host of undiagnosed neurological deficiencies.
Read More Here…

Earlier this week, Sen. Michael B. Enzi (R-WY) unveiled, “Guidelines for Assisting Those with Accessibility Needs,” a manual designed to make congressional offices more accessible to individuals with disabilities.

Through the hard work of Robert Demichelis, BIAA helped provide suggestions for the guide, which was distributed to all House and Senate offices.

In a “Dear Colleague” letter introducing the guide to Members of Congress and their staff, Sen. Enzi states, “Ensuring our ability to interact and assist [individuals who have accessibility needs] requires that we are prepared in advance to meet their needs with everything from the appropriate language and basic etiquette, to ensuring they are included in our emergency preparedness plans and provided for in our accessible room designs.”

Also this week, negotiations focused on putting together an economic stimulus package, resulting in a bipartisan agreement by the week’s end, although the Senate is expected to possibly bring up further amendments during its consideration of the package in coming weeks.

BIAA signed on to a coalition letter urging House and Senate leaders to temporarily raise Medicaid reimbursement to states in order to prevent states from being forced to make cutbacks in essential state services. Such essential Medicaid services include health care and long-term services and supports, which are often especially important to individuals with disabilities.

On Tuesday, the Senate passed a slightly revised version of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (H.R. 4986), following House approval of the same bill last week. Important wounded warrior provisions related to TBI care remain unchanged in the new version, which President Bush is expected to sign into law shortly.

The revised bill contains new language altering a provision in the original bill which expanded the rights of victims to sue foreign governments designated by the State Department as state sponsors of terrorism.

The White House unexpectedly announced on December 28, 2007, that President Bush would not sign the original bill because it included a provision which could allow plaintiffs to freeze Iraq government assets in the United States while their claims against Iraq were being litigated (Iraq was listed as a state sponsor of terrorism under Saddam Hussein’s regime).

One of BIAA’s policy goals for 2008 will be to monitor the implementation of the important TBI provisions contained in this bill. (The December 14, 2007 edition of Policy Corner contains more detailed information on these TBI provisions. You can access this issue, as well as all other archived issues of Policy Corner, by visiting BIAA’s webpage at http://www.biausa.org/policycorner.htm).

New research suggests that hidden traumatic brain injuries can cause social or educational failure, such as alcoholism or homelessness. If broadly verified, the findings could have a significant impact in dealing with these difficulties.

Read More: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120156672297223803.html?mod=hpp_us_pageone

Traumatic brain injury, often described as the “silent epidemic” of the Iraq war, may be less to blame for soldiers’ symptoms than doctors once thought, contends a provocative military study that suggests post-traumatic stress and depression often play a role.

Read More: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22904216/