Washington, DC, Mar 21, 2007 -

Congressman John Carter (R, Round Rock), House Republican Conference Secretary, today voted for three pieces of legislation aimed at providing increased services for America’s veterans, including a suicide prevention program, less stringent requirements for vision benefits, and increased compensation to disabled veterans.

“Our veterans deserve the best care we can give them, especially those who have suffered a casualty in combat,” said Congressman Carter. “The heroes who have put their lives at risk defending or country should certainly have access to such basic services as vision benefits and mental health assistance. These bills will offer greater accessibility for our veterans to get the treatment and support they need.”

H.R. 327, the Joshua Omvig Veterans Suicide Prevention Act, develops and implements a comprehensive program designed to reduce the number of suicides among veterans. Over the course of combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, there has been a growing concern with the number of suicides that have occurred in soldier and veteran population of these operations. For calendar year 2005, the suicide rate for Iraqi veterans was 19.9 per 100,000 soldiers, considerably higher than the national average, and the Army’s overall reported rate of 13.1 per 100,000.

H.R. 797 improves compensation benefits for veterans in certain cases of impairment of vision involving both eyes, and for other purposes. The bill lowers the requirement for receiving disability compensation through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for veterans with eye impairments as a result of service-connected or non-service-connected disability. VA currently requires that a veteran be legally blind in order to receive disability. This move will bring VA in line with other Federal agencies, such as Medicare and Social Security, which do not maintain this strict standard.

H .R. 1284, the Veterans' Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2007, increases some types of payments to disabled veterans, their families, and their dependants to account for increases in the cost of living. Payments eligible for the increase include wartime disability compensation, compensation to surviving spouses and children of veterans who die of service-connected causes, additional compensation for dependants and clothing allowances. Congress has provided annual increases in the payments to disabled veterans and their families for every fiscal year since 1976. The veterans’ disability compensation program is designed to provide compensation for the loss in financial support that veterans, their families, and dependants suffer as result of disabilities incurred or aggravated by military service.