Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Barack Obama Signs the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act , May 5, 2010
Approved by Congress last spring, the Caregivers and Veterans Omnibus Health Services Act was supposed to represent a “major step forward in America’s commitment to families and caregivers who tend to our wounded warriors every day,” according to President Barack Obama, who signed the bill into law on May 5, 2010.
Now more than nine months later, the $6.7 billion program has yet to be implemented, leaving thousands of caregivers in the lurch while they try to assist veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
The Department of Veterans Affairs had until January 31 to get things going. But bureaucratic hurdles have tied up a program that may end up serving fewer than the originally estimated 3,500 caregivers thought to be eligible.
If it becomes operational, the program is supposed to provide cash assistance, counseling and fill-in help (or respite care) to people overseeing the convalescence of wounded troops.
One issue still to be resolved is whether caregivers of veterans wounded before the current wars should be eligible for the program.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Caregivers of Wounded Troops Still Waiting for Benefits Signed Into Law by Obama (by Scott Wilson, Washington Post)
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