[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15548-15549]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          THE MEDICAL EVALUATION PARITY FOR SERVICEMEMBERS ACT

  (Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania asked and was given permission to 
address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago, I 
cast an affirmative vote for the National Defense Authorization Act for 
2016. However, I do have great concern over an important measure which 
was all but removed from the legislation we voted on today.
  Earlier this year, I authored the Medical Evaluation Parity for 
Servicemembers, or MEPS, Act. The MEPS Act would improve military 
suicide prevention by instituting a mental health assessment for all 
incoming military recruits, which can be used as a baseline for 
evaluations throughout their military careers. The conferenced version 
of the NDAA merely calls for the Department of Defense to continue to 
study such a screening.
  Mr. Speaker, this issue has been studied thoroughly over the past 
several years. I strongly urge the Pentagon to act quickly to take 
steps in better assessing the mental health of our servicemen and -
women with a commonsense baseline evaluation.
  A recent Army study found that nearly one in five Army soldiers enter 
the service with a psychiatric disorder, and nearly half of all 
soldiers who tried suicide first attempted it before enlisting.
  I call on the Pentagon to stop studying to death the death of our 
soldiers. Mr. Speaker, we need to act now.

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