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Obama-Bayh Team Up for Injured Vets

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August 04, 2008 7:54 AM

ABC News' Teddy Davis and Matthew Jaffe report: Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., along with rumored vice-presidential possibility Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and eight other senators, wrote Monday to Defense Secretary Robert Gates urging him to expand medical coverage for Iraq war veterans suffering from traumatic brain injuries, ABC News has learned.

The letter to Gates comes just two days before Obama will appear with Bayh at a campaign stop in Elkhart, Indiana. Bayh, long rumored to be a leading candidate for Obama's vice-presidential slot, will introduce Obama at Wednesday's event.

Obama, Bayh, and eight other senators want Gates to increase TRICARE coverage to include specialized treatment for Iraq vets who have experienced a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during deployment. In the letter, citing a RAND Corporation study that 19 percent of all vets have experienced a TBI, the lawmakers argue that the most promising treatments are not readily available for many injured vets who are often forced to get special permissions to get access to critical care. This letter is an effort to petition the Pentagon to remove those barriers.

"We are concerned that at a time when TBI is recognized as the signature wound of the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the most widely accepted and critical rehabilitative treatments for this injury, known as cognitive rehabilitation therapy, is excluded by the military’s TRICARE health insurance program," the lawmakers write in the letter.

"We urge you to provide official TRICARE coverage for cognitive rehabilitation as an instrumental therapy in the recovery process of America’s wounded warriors."

The senators note that almost 20,000 vets were medically retired with serious injuries in 2007. "We believe these soldiers should be able to access cognitive rehabilitation services at outside care facilities," they write.

The group of lawmakers, which along with Obama and Bayh also includes Senators Hillary Clinton, D-NY, Joe Lieberman, ID-Conn., John Kerry, D-Mass., Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., and Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., among others, notes the case of ABC News' correspondent Bob Woodruff, injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq in 2006.

Citing Woodruff's recovery as evidence of "the vital role that cognitive rehabilitation plays in facilitating meaningful recovery from brain injury", the senators argue that Gates should make more treatment available to US military members.

"His remarkable recovery from a severe TBI has been widely cited as a powerful example of the great innovations of our military healthcare system," they write in the letter. "Mr. Woodruff has repeatedly emphasized that his cognitive rehabilitation therapy was a vital part of his healing process. Yet the treatment made available to Mr. Woodruff may be denied to U.S. military personnel who are similarly afflicted."

"We urge the Department of Defense to provide official TRICARE coverage of cognitive rehabilitation therapies, so that all returning service personnel can benefit from the best brain injury care this country has to offer."

Woodruff has started a foundation to increase wounded soldiers' access to cognitive rehabilitation when they return from war with a brain injury.

Senators Ken Salazar, D-Co., Jeff Bingaman, D-NM, and Blanche Lincoln, D-Ark., also co-wrote the letter to Gates.

Bayh, a lead sponsor of the letter, has been active in fighting for increased care of soldiers with TBI since the death of Indiana national guardsman Gerald Cassidy, who came home from Iraq last year suffering from a TBI but could not gain access to a private care facility and later died at Fort Knox.

Bayh, addressing Army Secretary Pete Geren at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last November, said of Cassidy, "The enemy could not kill him, but our own government did."

August 4, 2008 in Kucinich, Dennis, Romney, Mitt, Tancredo, Tom, Veepstakes | Permalink | User Comments (7)

User Comments

Obama/Bayh ticket would be very interesting, an "exotic" black guy who represents change with a very boring white guy who tries to quell fears.

It just might work.

Posted by: Sandy | Aug 4, 2008 8:34:17 AM

As a Hillary supporter, I was thrilled to hear Senator Lindsey Graham say over the weekend that the Republicans would not allow Barack Obama to turn every criticism of him into an attack on his race. This is precisely what he did to Hillary Clinton – turned her and her husband and supporters into racists. Anyone who disagreed with Barack was a racist. And this is the man you Obamabots want in the White House? I almost hope you get your wish, just so you can see what a disaster he will be.

Posted by: Carrie Nye | Aug 4, 2008 9:52:24 AM

Has Obama answered the question yet. Who is "THEY"? Rasmussen tracking McCain up 1.

Posted by: geevill | Aug 4, 2008 10:13:28 AM

I am a Democrat, and had made up my mind to vote for the Democrat, no matter which nominee won. I’m rethinking that position. I’m tired of hearing Bush = McCain. That’s a load of bull, and it’s an insult to my intelligence for Obama, McCaskill & Co. to keep repeating it. I hate it when politicians assume I’m an idiot. I’m also extremely upset that Obama insinuated John McCain and his campaign are racists. If the McCain camp or the national Republican Party had actually done something that was racist, I’d be the first to condemn them. I don’t think the Republicans are any better than the Democrats, but I sure am disappointed in my own party this year. I’ve never not voted in an election, but I just can’t see voting for Obama. I can’t vote Republican, either. And Ralph Nader is an idiot. Where does that leave me? I guess I’ll have to vote Democratic for state and national offices, and leave the presidential line blank. I will NEVER vote for a Republican, but I will also NEVER vote for a black man who acts as if anyone who disagrees with him is a racist. Am I the only white person in this country who is sick of this crap?

Posted by: Claude Jackson | Aug 4, 2008 10:15:45 AM

These young troops that gave so much for our country deserve the very best the country can give back and that is excellent medical care as long as it is needed. It was not done for previous war vets coming home from Viet Nam. Too many of their problems were ignored and their lives were compromised.
Our giving free health care to illegal immigrants who are criminals but not to our vets is asinine.

Posted by: Mary | Aug 4, 2008 11:10:39 AM

Clinton did not pick Lee Hamilton as his running mate, especially because he was pro-life. Clinton, the great compromiser, refused to compromise in office on partial birth abortion, vetoing bills banning it. Senator Moynihan said PBA was too close to infanticide. President Bush signed the bill and the Supreme Court upheld it. Obama was more extreme than Clinton: he voted in Illinois against a bill requiring medical staff to assist a baby born alive from an abortion, with the bogus claim it might undermine abortion rights. He didn't vote "Present"; he didn't claim he pushed the wrong button--his two common dodges from responsibility. Some Democrats oppose Bayh on the grounds that he favored the ban on partial birth abortion, an even stricter standard than the one used to reject Hamilton or keep Casey from speaking at the Clinton convention. Obama has retreated so often that David Broder said retreat characterized the second half of his nomination campaign. A good bet might be that he'll compromise on Bayh and even claim it shows his independence from ideologues, though he was worse than the ideologues in the Illinois legislature.

Posted by: Richard L.A. Schaefer | Aug 4, 2008 2:58:56 PM

But Obama couldn't find a way to visit injured troops in Germany...all talk, empty suit, empty heart.

Posted by: fed up | Aug 4, 2008 3:31:27 PM

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