By Tom Zampieri
Continuum of Care Act
The second session of the 109th Congress will be critical for all blinded veterans. There are three pending bills about which we hope individual House and Senate Members are sufficiently versed in order to cast an informed vote and insure their passage.
In very late December, the Senate did pass S. 1182, which included the Blinded Veterans Continuum of Care Act in Section 14. The provision would authorize the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to hire 35 new Blind Rehabilitative Outpatient Specialists (BROS) over the next three years. The Senate provided $3.5 million for the administration of this increase in full-time positions. While we did not secure the 75 positions we had asked for, the legislation assures many medical centers the BROS posts that would never have been possible without its passage.
The next big battle is now on the House side. Without a companion bill to the Senate action, VA will still not be able to hire the 35 BROS. The Blind Veterans Continuum of Care Act of 2005 is H.R. 3579. The bill is in the House Veterans Affairs Committee with 26 co-sponsors presently supporting it. BVA has been told that if enough support is garnered from other members of Congress, the bill might well be voted on in committee in the month of March. If passed, it could move to the House Floor for a full vote sometime this spring.
Veterans Equity Act
Also in the House Committee is Dr. James Allen’s Veterans Equity Act of 2005, which is H.R. 2963. This important bill would amend a section of the Paired Organ Act of 2000, allowing veterans who are service connected for blindness in one eye to request an increase in their service connection if they eventually develop blindness in the nonservice-connected eye.
The need for the above legislation is critically real. While some would argue that legal blindness does not typically occur later in a nonservice-connected eye, we have documented cases in which veterans have been denied any change in benefits once blindness occurred in the second eye. Representative Tammy Baldwin (D-WI-2) has fought for well over two years to get this bill passed and to thereby amend Section 1160 of the U.S.C. Title 38 Code. H.R. 2963 had 68 bipartisan co-sponsors at press time.
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