Senate Floor Speech
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison
May 17, 2004 -- Page: S5525

AMENDMENT 3152 TO THE NATIONAL DEFENSE AUTHORIZATION ACT FOR FISCAL YEAR 2005

MRS. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, this amendment attempts to solve a problem facing not this generation of military leadership but our future generation of military leadership.

Current law established in the Career Compensation Act of 1949 denies cadets and midshipmen the disability benefits that would be provided to any other member of the Armed Forces, especially when they are injured in the line of duty. With respect to health benefits, cadets and midshipmen who are separated for medical disability after being injured during military training now face unnecessary and unfair burdens in maintaining the continuity of their health care.

In addition, Reserve Officer Training Corps, ROTC cadets are in many cases required to pay for their own medical care after being injured during military training. Even though ROTC cadets are covered under the Office of Workers Compensation within the Department of Labor, medical care providers, many of whom have not been compensated for their prior work, decline to treat ROTC patients unless they use private medical insurance.

This is not something that we should allow to remain a problem. In 2001, when I became aware of the plight of some seriously disabled cadets and midshipmen from the service academies, I asked for a study. These cadets were discharged from the Armed Forces without any entitlement to future medical care or disability benefits. In each of these cases, the cadets and midshipmen had been injured in the line of duty.

I asked for a report, and the Department of Defense did find that the ROTC also had examples of how the health care system, which currently operates under the Department of Labor, does not adequately serve these former cadets whose care was under their charge.

In one case, a ROTC cadet received dental injuries during training at the Fort Lewis advanced camp for the U.S. Army. As a result of his injuries, he received emergency medical treatment at Fort Lewis but required followup treatment at a civilian treatment facility. The only dentist who would see the cadet treated him and received $13 on the $1,200 bill that was submitted. The dentist attempted to work in conjunction with the cadet and the ROTC unit for nearly a year to receive full payment for his work, and he never did.

So the amendment I offer today would include academy cadets and midshipmen in the military disability discharge and retirement system so that they can also receive necessary health and dental benefits, and for ROTC cadets it would transfer responsibility for medical claims from the Department of Labor to the Department of Defense, authorizing the use of supplemental health care programs in the TRICARE management agency. While no additional benefits would be provided to ROTC participants, the change would ensure a better quality of health care.

This amendment is fair to academy cadets, midshipmen, and ROTC cadets who are injured while in the performance of military training. It would provide health and disability benefits to those who currently receive none if they are midshipmen and academy cadets. It also ensures a credible health care system widely accepted by health care providers for those currently covered under the less effective OWC program.

The Congressional Budget Office and Department of Defense estimate these changes will cost approximately $460,000 a year. So this is a very small amount of money required to provide care for those who are in training to serve our country.

The bottom line is these ROTC cadets who are injured in military training would be able to receive health care if they need it as a followup, after the emergency treatment from that training accident. This provides that they can go from the Department of Labor to the Department of Defense to receive better quality and more experienced health care coverage.

Regarding those midshipmen and cadets in our military academies, it would allow those who have to be severed from the academies because of their injuries, because they are no longer physically able to become

members of the armed services, if they are injured in military training, that they would be able to receive the health care and the disability payments to which they would be entitled. It would go to the Veterans Affairs Department for them to determine what kind of disability and how much of a disability, just as those in the armed services do today. I think it is the fair thing.

It is the result of a study that I requested. So I believe it is my responsibility to try to correct the problems that were found in the study and treat these young ROTC cadets and those wonderful young people who are in our military academies and in the Naval Academy and Coast Guard--that they would also be able to receive health care if they are injured and would be able to receive a disability payment if they are severed from the academy.

Of course they get health care--treatment for their injury. But assume their injury then keeps them from being able to stay at the academy; they have to be let go because they no longer can perform the physical functions. Then they go into the private sector and their health care continuity would be assured under this amendment as they would get a small disability as well because they were in training.

ROTC, today, does give health care benefits if they are injured in training, but it is under the Department of Labor, and it is under workers' compensation. There has been a dissatisfaction with the kind of treatment they have been able to receive, and the Department of Labor and workers' compensation doesn't have the same understanding of a military injury. All we are doing--and this costs absolutely nothing--we are just transferring the benefit from the Department of Labor to the Department of Defense so these young people would be able to get continued health care for whatever their injury was when it was in the line of duty.