KENNEDY, HATCH COMMEND HOUSE PASSAGE OF TRAUMATIC BRAIN INJURY LEGISLATION
WASHINGTON, DC – Senators Edward M. Kennedy and Orrin Hatch released the following statement today commending the House of Representatives for passing the Traumatic Brain Injury Act Reauthorization. The bill is very similar to the measure passed by the Senate in December, and the Senate is expected to take up the House Bill very soon and send it to the President for his signature.
“Today, we’re a giant step closer to giving our nation’s military, veterans, children, and other citizens with traumatic brain injuries the best rehabilitation services we can provide. Over 5 million Americans are now living with permanent disabilities because of these injuries, and 1.5 million more suffer and survive such injuries every year. Modern medicine is now providing real hope for rehabilitation, and our goal in this legislation is to make it widely available to this vulnerable population. They deserve no less,” said Senators Kennedy and Hatch.
The legislation will extend and improve funding for a range of traumatic brain injury rehabilitation programs, such as assistance in returning to work, finding a place to live, and obtaining needed support and appropriate rehabilitation services. It also funds an important CDC program to prevent such injuries.
The bill will be of major assistance to soldiers with such injuries from combat, and to children, who tend to have a higher incidence of the injuries.
Statement of Senator Edward M. Kennedy on Passage of the “The Traumatic Brain Injury Act of 2008”
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Today, Congress took a major step toward making a remarkable difference in the lives of some of our nation’s most deserving citizens: our soldiers and our children with brain injuries.
I commend our colleagues Congressmen Pascrell and Platts, as well as my friend and co-sponsor in the Senate, Senator Hatch, on all they’ve done to achieve passage of this legislation. It’s an important and timely bill that helps an especially deserving group of people.
Traumatic brain injuries have become the signature wound of the war in Iraq. Up to two-thirds of our wounded soldiers may have suffered such injuries.
In the civilian population here at home, an unacceptably large number of children from birth to age 14 experience traumatic brain injuries– approximately 475,000 a year – and some of the most frequent of these injuries are to children under the age of five. In Massachusetts alone, more than 40,000 individuals experience these injuries each year.
As a result of these injuries, over 5.3 million Americans are now living with a permanent disability. Today, we have taken another step toward ensuring that these citizens and their families will receive the best services we can provide.
The legislation reauthorizes grants that assist States, Territories, and the District of Columbia in establishing and expanding coordinated systems of community-based services and supports for persons with such injuries.
The legislation also reauthorizes an important provision, the Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury Program. This program, enacted by Congress in 2000, has become essential because persons with these injuries have an array of needs beyond treatment and health care. Protection and advocacy services include assistance in returning to work, finding a place to live, obtaining supports and services such as attendant care and assistive technology, and obtaining appropriate mental health, substance abuse, and rehabilitation services.
Often these persons – especially our returning veterans – must remain in extremely expensive institutions far longer than necessary, because the community-based supports and services they need are not available, even though they can lead to reduced government expenditures, increased productivity, greater independence and community involvement. Those who provide such assistance must have special skills, and their work is often time-intensive.
The legislation also allocates funds for CDC programs that provide important information and data on injury prevention of these injuries. A recent Institute of Medicine report demonstrated that these programs work. Their benefit is obvious, and we must do all we can to expand this appropriation in the years ahead to meet the urgent and growing need for this assistance.
A recent report by the Institute of Medicine calls the current TBI programs an “overall success.” It states that “there is considerable value in providing … funding,” and “it is worrisome that the modestly budgeted…TBI Program continues to be vulnerable to budget cuts.”
Current estimates show that the federal government spends less than $3 per brain injury survivor on research and services. As the IOM study suggests, this program must be able to expand, so that each state will have the resources needed to maintain vital services and advocacy for the large number of Americans who sustain such injuries each year.
Enactment of this bipartisan legislation will bring us a giant step closer to strengthening these vital programs for these deserving individuals and their families.
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