Today, U.S. Representatives Mike Coffman (R-CO) and Derek Kilmer (D-WA) led the bipartisan reintroduction of the Veteran Urgent Access to Mental HealthCare Act (H.R. 918).
This legislation would allow the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide initial mental health assessments and urgent mental healthcare services to veterans at risk of suicide or harming others, even if they have another than honorable discharge. A service member receives a less than honorable discharge, or “bad paper” discharge, when released from the military for relatively minor forms of misconduct. In all too many recent instances, however, this misconduct resulted from the service member’s experiences during a combat deployment.
Representative Coffman stated, “It is critical that our men and women in uniform know they can reach out to the VA for help when they come home from a combat deployment. We particularly need to watch out for those suffering from “invisible” wounds that may lead to behavioral and other mental health conditions. This bill would let more veterans facing a crisis know that they are not alone and have a place to turn for expert support and treatment.”
[For more of this story go to http://coffman.house.gov/media...amp;utm_medium=email]
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