Jay Rockefeller: “as a senior member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I am proud to reintroduce legislation today intended to…”

“as a senior member of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs, I am proud to reintroduce legislation today intended to strengthen mental health programs within the Department of Veterans Affairs a key element of caring for those who have served on the battlefield. Historically, as many as one-third of all veterans seeking care at VA have received mental health treatment, and research suggests that serious mental illnesses affect at least one-fifth of the veterans who use the VA health care system. About 450,000 of the approximately 2.3 million veterans who receive compensation from VA have service-connected psychiatric and neurological disorders. I remain concerned about the viability of some of the programs developed to care for veterans with mental health needs. I have heard testimony about a number of these programs endangered by budget constraints and a shift in focus from inpatient care to outpatient clinics. Specialized programs particularly for substance use disorders and PTSD shut down, reduced in size, or understaffed--offering little or no care to veterans suffering from these seriously debilitating disorders. Congress previously enacted a provision to designate $15 million in VA funding specifically to assist medical facilities in their efforts to improve care for veterans with substance use disorders and PTSD.”