Brain Injury Blog | Traumatic Brain Injury TBI

This week, the Co-Chairs of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-NJ) and Rep. Todd Platts (R-PA) sent a letter, signed by over 60 House members from both parties, to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates urging TRICARE coverage of cognitive rehabilitation. Continue Reading »

Congress also made progress on a major disability rights bill, as both the House Education and Labor Committee and the House Judiciary Committee marked up and approved the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (H.R. 3195). This measure is designed to counter the last decade of Supreme and lower court decisions which have excluded large groups of people with disabilities from receiving employment protections included in the original Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), which was enacted in 1990. Continue Reading »

Also on Wednesday, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs approved H.R. 2818, legislation endorsed by BIAA which would establish Epilepsy Centers of Excellence within the VA. Last week, the Senate passed its version of the legislation as part of a package of veterans’ mental health bills. Continue Reading »

Symposium on Deep Brain Stimulation Held in Washington, D.C.

On Tuesday, BIAA Government Affairs Associate Robert Demichelis attended “Brain Pacemakers: A Promising Approach and a New Era of Hope for Neurological and Psychiatric Disorders,” a symposium on deep brain stimulation sponsored by The Office on Disability, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Cleveland Clinic Center for Neurological Restoration. Continue Reading »

Medicare Competitive Bidding Program Under Congressional Scrutiny

On Tuesday, the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on the issue of competitive bidding of durable medical equipment (DME) under the Medicare Fee-For-Service program. As a member of the Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities (CCD), as well as the Independence Through Enhancement of Medicare and Medicaid (ITEM) Coalition, BIAA signed on to several letters urging Congress to ensure that the Medicare competitive bidding program does not decrease access to and the quality of assistive devices. Continue Reading »

The House and Senate Budget Committees both passed fiscal 2009 budget resolutions this week which would provide significant increases for health discretionary programs. Continue Reading »

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.

According to Linda J. Bilmes, a former chief financial officer and assistant secretary of the US Commerce Department, it will cost $662 billion over the next 40 years to care for returned veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Bilmes, who now lectures on public policy at the John F Kennedy School of Government, accuses the Bush administration of being unprepared for what disability benefits and medical care will cost for veterans.

The costs are increased by the fact that more soldiers are surviving their injuries. In Vietnam the wounds per death ratio was 2.6:1, now it is 16:1. In addition there is a large number of soldiers who have disabilities as mental health conditions.

Source: www.newsdaily.com

Fisher House, a new residence on the grounds of Palo Alto Veterans Affairs Hospital, gives families of military soldiers a place to stay while loved ones recover

Name : Lauren McSherry Photographs Norbert von der Groeben

Eight weeks after their son was injured in Iraq, Tim and Linda Perry carried their suitcases into a newly decorated bedroom at the Fisher House in Palo Alto. It had been a long journey from their Somers, Conn. home — in more ways than one.
Continue Reading »