[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 6]
[Senate]
[Pages 7467-7468]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      TRAUMATIC INJURY PROTECTION

  Mr. CRAIG. Madam President, we have completed a tremendously 
important piece of legislation for the funding of our troops in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. During this afternoon, I, along with Senator 
Danny Akaka, my ranking member on the Veterans' Affairs Committee, and 
Senator Mike DeWine, added an amendment I want to speak for a few 
moments about because I think it addresses a tremendous gap in the 
coverage that exists in the treatment of the soldiers, sailors, 
marines, and airmen who are fighting for our country at this very 
moment.
  Our amendment addresses the coverage gap through the creation of a 
new traumatic injury protection insurance program for the benefit of 
severely disabled service members. But before I describe the amendment, 
let me further discuss the nature of the problem our amendment attempts 
to attend.
  It is widely known that due to the incredible advances in medicine, 
service members who may not have survived life-threatening injuries in 
previous wars are now making it back home alive from Iraq and 
Afghanistan. That is the good news. The bad news, however, is that they 
must live with injuries that may have left them without their limbs, 
sight, hearing, or speech ability, or even more. All of my colleagues 
have likely met these brave young men and women in their home visits or 
right here in Washington, DC, at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. They 
are fighting for their lives. They are attempting to learn, through 
physical and occupational therapy, how to reengage back into society, 
needless to say, relearning things I and my colleagues probably take 
for granted every day--how to walk, how to read,

[[Page 7468]]

how to simply make breakfast in the morning and what, for them, can 
take months and quite possibly years to learn how to redo.
  It is during this rehabilitation period at military hospitals the 
need for additional financial resources becomes most acute. For many 
Guard and Reserve members at Walter Reed, they already have foregone 
higher paying civilian jobs prior to their deployment. Lengthy recovery 
periods simply add to the financial stress they bear. In addition, 
family members of injured soldiers bear the burdens necessary to travel 
from great distances to provide the love and emotional support that is 
absolutely essential for any successful rehabilitation. Spouses quit 
jobs to spend time with their husbands at the hospital, or husbands 
quit jobs to spend time with their wives. Parents spare no expense to 
be with their injured children.
  To meet these needs, our amendment would create a traumatic injury 
protection insurance rider as part of an existing service member's 
group life insurance program. The traumatic insurance would provide 
coverage for severely disabling conditions at a cost of approximately 
$1 a month for participating service members. The payment for those 
suffering a severe disability would be immediate and would range from 
$25,000 to a maximum of $100,000. Of course, that is to tide them over 
during this period before the other benefits we all know about kick in.
  The purpose of the immediate payment would be to give injured service 
members and their families the financial cushion they need to sustain 
them before their medical discharge from the service, when veterans 
benefits kick in.
  The traumatic injuries covered under our amendment include total and 
permanent loss of sight, loss of hands or feet, total or permanent loss 
of speech, total or permanent loss of hearing, quadriplegia or 
paraplegia, burns greater than second degree, covering 30 percent of 
the body or face, certain traumatic brain injuries.
  Most of the amendment is entirely reasonable given the cause. 
Informal CBO estimates put the fiscal year 2006 cost at about $10 
million, a very small price to pay to meet the needs of those wounded 
warriors.
  I cannot take credit for the idea behind this amendment. The great 
credit must go to disabled veterans from the Wounded Warrior Project, 
run under the aegis of the United Spinal Association. Three Wounded 
Warrior veterans from the Iraq war visited my office last week to 
discuss the need to provide this type of an insurance benefit.
  One veteran, former Army Staff Sergeant Heath Calhoun, had both of 
his legs amputated after being struck during a rocket-propelled grenade 
attack in Iraq. Heath and his wife, Tiffany, who was present with him 
in my office, described the financial problems they had endured after 
Tiffany quit her job to be with Heath during convalescence. It took 
over a year before Heath was medically discharged from service. While 
the Calhoun family was able to make it through, it was an extremely 
trying period. Heath told me he was adamant that other servicemen in 
Iraq should not have to worry about finances, should they, too, be 
injured.
  The quickest way to accomplish that, he told me, was to add a 
disability insurance rider, financed by service members through monthly 
premium deductions, to the existing life insurance program.
  I am honored to sponsor that amendment. It is now in the legislation 
that passed the Senate. The White House endorses it. The Defense 
Department endorses it. We had a press conference yesterday with the 
Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Jim Nicholson, and the head of personnel 
at the DOD.
  I want to also personally compliment Ryan Kelly, who was a visitor 
also with me this past week. Mr. Kelly lost his right leg during an 
ambush near Baghdad almost 21 months ago. I am told he was a principal 
author of the draft legislation that culminated in the amendment we 
offered here this afternoon. I thank him for the tremendously fine work 
he did.
  I also thank President Bush, of course--I just mentioned him--and his 
top administration officials for lending their support to this 
amendment. Secretary Nicholson, Defense Deputy Secretary of Defense 
Paul Wolfowitz, and their staffs provided invaluable technical support 
in drafting this amendment.
  The supplemental already would make substantial improvements to 
benefits provided to survivors of those killed in the line of duty. I 
applaud all of those efforts for our veterans and their survivors. I 
also remind my colleagues we must be vigilant in our care for those who 
are still fighting to regain the normalcy of the lives they enjoyed 
prior to sustaining catastrophic injuries in the defense of our 
freedoms. We now have moved this from an idea to an amendment, and now 
into the legislation that passed. I thank my colleagues in the Senate 
for their unanimous support of what is a very important piece of 
legislation that fills a hole and sustains a family and sustains a 
warrior in his or her greatest time of need--that of recovering from a 
traumatic injury and moving into civilian or military whole life again. 
I thank my colleagues for their support. I yield the floor and suggest 
the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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