Obama Signs Suicide Prevention Bill For Veterans

Amidst partisanship over health care in the U.S., one issue received support from both parties, according to U.S. News and World Report: curbing suicides among American veterans.

The issue was not mentioned in President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, but it became clear early this year that both Democrats and Republicans would rally around it.

The Senate voted 99-0 to pass the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act on Feb. 3, while the House voted 403-0 in favor of it last month. Obama signed the bill on Thursday.

The bill is named after a Marine Corps veteran who killed himself in 2011 after he struggled with post-traumatic stress disorder following deployments to Iraq and in Afghanistan.

Last December, Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, single-handedly stalled the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act in the Senate, saying that it carries too hefty a price tag and the VA could already handle it.

Veterans groups said the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act , which would require a report on successful veteran suicide prevention programs and allow the VA to pay incentives to hire psychiatrists, is desperately needed.

MSNBC: Ed Schultz And Montel Williams On Veteran Suicide Prevention Bill

MSNBC

For the second time in five weeks, House lawmakers unanimously passed veterans mental health legislation designed to launch new community outreach efforts and recruit more psychiatrists to slow the nation’s estimated 22 veterans suicides each day.

And, for the second time in five weeks, supporters will have to wait and see when — or if — the Senate will move ahead on the measure.

House lawmakers called passage of the bill a critical need for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which estimates as many as 22 veterans a day commit suicide.

“Since we last passed this bill … 750 veterans have taken their lives,” said bill sponsor Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn. “We cannot wait another day. We cannot pass this problem forward.”

Last December, Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, single-handedly stalled a bill in the Senate, saying that it carries too hefty a price tag for authority that the Veterans Affairs Department could, in most cases, already exercise. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Connecticut Democrat, tried to pass the bill by unanimous consent, but Mr. Coburn objected.

Veterans groups say the Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for American Veterans Act , which would require a report on successful veteran suicide prevention programs and allow the VA to pay incentives to hire psychiatrists, is desperately needed and must pass.

Last December, Mr. Coburn, who is retiring from the Senate, said the bill wouldn’t accomplish much new.

“I object, not because I don’t want to save suicides, but because I don’t think this bill will do the first thing to change what’s happening,” said Coburn.

Paul Rieckhoff, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, said the that despite his reputation as a budget hawk, Mr. Coburn should have recognized that the $22 million cost of the bill is worth the lives it would have saved.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/dec/15/tom-coburn-stalls-veterans-suicide-bill-senate/#ixzz3OoIvPCcv

20 Killed In French Act Of Terror; 2000 Killed in Nigerian Act Of Terror

Secular Talk

The Guardian:

“Hundreds of bodies – too many to count – remain strewn in the bush in Nigeria from an Islamic extremist attack that Amnesty International described as the ‘deadliest massacre’ in the history of Boko Haram.

“Fighting continued on Friday around Baga, a town on the border with Chad where insurgents seized a key military base on 3 January and attacked again on Wednesday.

“‘Security forces have responded rapidly, and have deployed significant military assets and conducted air strikes against militant targets,’ said a government spokesman.

“District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/09/boko-haram-deadliest-massacre-baga-nigeria