WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa today praised unanimous Senate passage of legislation to prevent military and veteran suicides and improve access to good mental health care.

“It’s tragic to hear of men and women who serve their country, then suffer because they don’t get the help they need,” Grassley said.  “Our country’s obligation to members of the military begins with military service and continues long after the service ends.  Mental health care is just as important as every other kind of health care.  Too often, it’s overlooked or inadequate.  This legislations aims to turn that around.”

Grassley is a co-sponsor of the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans (SAV) Act, which the Senate passed today and the House of Representatives passed unanimously in January.  The legislation is named for a Marine veteran who died by suicide in March 2011 at the age of 28.  Hunt served in Iraq and Aghanistan and suffered from post traumatic stress order from his harrowing experiences. His family says the Department of Veterans Affairs mired his care in bureaucracy and that he found solace in helping other veterans with their struggles.

Based on his experiences and those of many other service members and veterans, the legislation:  

  • Increases access to mental health care by, among other things, creating a peer support and community outreach pilot program to assist transitioning service members as well as a one-stop, interactive website of available resources.
  • Better meets the demand for mental health care by starting a pilot program to repay the loan debt of students in psychiatry so it is easier to recruit them to work at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
  • Boosts the accountability of mental health care by requiring an annual evaluation of Veterans Affairs mental health and suicide-prevention programs.

The legislation builds on the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, enacted in 2007.  The Omvig Act, a bipartisan bill that Grassley co-sponsored as the lead Senate Republican, was named after an Iraq War veteran from Iowa who committed suicide in 2005.  It sought to improve mental health services for veterans and reduce the incidence of suicide.

Grassley successfully has pressed for increased hiring of veterans at the Internal Revenue Service.  After the recent Veterans Affairs waiting list scandal, he checked to make sure Iowa facilities were treating veterans in a timely manner.  He also contributed to legislation, ultimately enacted, to make it easier to remove senior officials at the Department of Veterans Affairs for poor performance.  

 

-30-