[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 93 (Monday, July 17, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7629-S7630]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. HATCH (for himself and Mr. Kennedy):
  S. 3668. A bill to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for 
the expansion and improvement of traumatic brain injury programs, and 
for other purposes; to the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and 
Pensions.
  Mr. HATCH. Mr. President, as we face the close of the 109th Congress 
in the coming months, I feel it is important that we reauthorize the 
Traumatic Brain Injury Act. It is my pleasure to introduce this 
reauthorization bill along with the ranking minority member of the 
Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pension Committee, Senator Ted 
Kennedy, with whom I worked on the original legislation over 10 years 
ago. Our colleagues on the House side, Representatives Bill Pascrell, 
Jr., and Todd Russell Platts, have just recently introduced a companion 
bill with the same goal of reauthorizing the TBI Act this year.
  Sustaining a traumatic brain injury--or TBI--can be both catastrophic 
and devastating. The financial and emotional costs to the individual, 
family, and community are enormous. Traumatic brain injuries contribute 
to a substantial number of deaths and cases of permanent disability 
annually.
  Of the 1.4 million who sustain a TBI each year in the United States: 
50,000 die; 235,000 are hospitalized; and 1.1 million are treated and 
released from an emergency department. Brain injuries are the most 
frequent reasons for visits to physicians and emergency rooms.
  These statistics are more revealing when one considers that every 16 
seconds someone in the U.S. sustains a head injury; every 12 minutes, 
one of these people will die and another will become permanently 
disabled. Of those who survive, each year, an estimated 80,000 to 
90,000 people experience the onset of long-term disability associated 
with a TBI. An additional 2,000 will exist in a persistent vegetative 
state.
  Even more startling is the fact that brain injury kills more 
Americans under the age of 34 than all other causes combined and has 
claimed more lives since the Turn of the Century than all United States 
wars combined. Sixty-eight percent of war veterans are returning home 
with sustained brain injuries.
  The distress of TBI is not limited to diagnosis. A survivor of a 
severe brain injury typically faces 5 to 10 years of intensive services 
and estimated lifetime costs can exceed $4 million. Direct medical 
costs and indirect costs such as lost productivity of TBI totaled an 
estimated $60 billion in the United States in 2000.
  The Traumatic Brain Injury Act is the only Federal legislation 
specifically addressing issues faced by 5.3 million American children 
and adults who live with a long-term disability as a result of 
traumatic brain injury. Reauthorization of the Traumatic Brain Injury 
Act will provide for the continuation of research, not only for the 
treatment of TBI but also for prevention and awareness programs which 
will help decrease the occurrence of traumatic brain injury and improve 
the long-term outcome.
  In 2006, Congress has an opportunity to strengthen the TBI Act by 
authorizing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CDC, to 
determine the incidence and prevalence of traumatic brain injury in the 
general population of the United States, including all age groups and 
persons in institutional settings such as nursing homes, correctional 
facilities, psychiatric hospitals, child care facilities, and 
residential institutes for people with developmental disabilities.

  This legislation authorizes the Health Resources and Services 
Administration, HRSA, to make grants for projects of national 
significance that improve individual and family access to service 
systems; assist states in developing service capacity; improve 
monitoring and evaluation of rehabilitation services and supports; and 
address emerging needs of servicemen and women, veterans, and 
individuals and families who have experienced brain injury through 
service delivery demonstration projects.
  This bill also authorizes HRSA to include the American Indian 
Consortium as an eligible recipient of competitive grants awarded to 
States, Territories, and the District of Columbia to develop 
comprehensive system of services and supports nationwide.
  Furthermore, this bill instructs HRSA and the Administration on 
Developmental Disabilities to coordinate data collection regarding 
protection and advocacy services.
  The TBI Act offers balanced and coordinated public policy in brain 
injury prevention, research, education, and community-based services 
and supports for individuals living with traumatic brain injury and 
their families.
  Mr. President, reauthorization of the Traumatic Brain Injury Act will 
further provide mechanisms for the prevention, treatment and the 
improvement of the quality of life for those Americans and their 
families who may sustain such a devastating disability. I ask my 
colleagues' support in promptly reauthorizing the Traumatic Brain 
Injury Act.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, today I am proud to join with Senator 
Hatch in sponsoring the reauthorization of the Traumatic Brain Injury 
Act. This

[[Page S7630]]

bill will provide valuable assistance to the millions of children and 
adults in our nation who are facing an array of problems because of 
their injuries.
  First, it is critical for us to acknowledge the important role which 
the programs authorized under this bill can play for the large number 
of soldiers wounded in the war. As of June 2006--almost 19,000 service 
members have been wounded in Iraq and data continue to demonstrate that 
brain injuries are approximately two-thirds of the injuries suffered in 
the war.
  On top of that, there is an extremely high incidence of traumatic 
brain injuries among children between birth and age 14--approximately 
475,000 a year--and some of the highest numbers of injuries are among 
children under the age of five.
  Soldiers and children--I cannot think of groups more deserving of our 
attention.
  Reauthorization of the TBI Act is crucial to continued federal 
funding for a range of traumatic brain injury programs. The bill will 
reauthorize grants that have provided vital assistance to States, 
Territories, the District of Columbia, and American Indian Consortia in 
building or enhancing coordinated systems of community-based services 
and supports for children and adults with traumatic brain injuries.
  In addition, when Congress first authorized the Traumatic Brain 
Injury Act as part of the Children's Health Act of 2000, it had the 
foresight to include funding for the Protection and Advocacy for 
Individuals with Traumatic Brain Injury Program. This program has 
played a crucial role because individuals with traumatic brain injury 
have help in returning to work, finding a place to live, accessing 
needed supports and services such as attendant care and assistive 
technology, and obtaining appropriate mental health, substance abuse, 
and rehabilitation services. Often those with brain injuries--including 
our returning veterans--are forced to remain in extremely expensive 
institutional settings far longer than necessary because the community-
based supports and services they need are not available. Effective 
protection and advocacy services for people with traumatic brain injury 
can lead both to reduced Government expenditures and increased 
productivity, independence and community integration for patients. 
However, those who advocate for the injured must possess specialized 
skills and the work is often time-intensive.
  This legislation also provides funding for critical CDC programs that 
provide extremely important surveillance and injury prevention 
information.
  In a time when both the administration and Congress are searching for 
programs that provide the right kind of ``bang for the Federal buck,'' 
the recent findings in an Institute of Medicine March 2006 report show 
that the TBI programs work. Last year the various programs in the TBI 
bill were funded for a total of only $12 million--yet look at the good 
they do. Not only should these programs be reauthorized, the funding 
also should be increased.
  The IOM calls the TBI programs an ``overall success,'' stating that 
``there is considerable value in providing funding,'' and ``it is 
worrisome that the modestly budgeted HRSA TBI Program continues to be 
vulnerable to budget cuts.'' As the IOM study suggests, this program 
must be continued and allowed to grow in order to ensure that each 
state has the resources necessary to maintain critical services and 
advocacy for the estimated 5.3 million people currently living with 
disabilities resulting from brain injury.
  Again, soldiers and children, I cannot think of two more deserving 
groups of people in our Nation. We owe them the services and advocacy 
that these critical programs offer. And I urge our colleagues to 
support the passage of this important piece of bipartisan disability 
legislation this year.
                                 ______