Wounded Warrior

The wounded warrior legislation includes provisions that would improve substandard military and veterans’ health facilities, expand the diagnosis and treatment of traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder, simplify and increase severance pay and disability retired pay for combat-injured service members who cannot continue on active duty, and try to make it easier for injured combat veterans to transfer from the military to veterans’ medical systems.

Most provisions of the defense bill “wouldn’t kick in until the new fiscal year, but most provisions of the pending wounded warrior plan become law upon passage and approval,” Reid said. Approval, in this case, means being signed into law by President Bush.

The House of Representatives passed its own Wounded Warrior Act as separate legislation and as part of its version of the 2008 defense authorization bill, and has been waiting since May for the Senate to catch up in the legislative process so that negotiations can begin on a compromise version.

The Bush administration and Pentagon have raised objections to the wounded warrior plans, mostly because Congress is acting so quickly that the administration has not been able to formulate its own ideas. But a veto of the final package is considered unlikely by congressional leaders.

H.R.1538 Dignified Treatment of Wounded Warriors Act
7/25/2007--Passed Senate amended.