"We are going to go and start providing mental health care to those
with other-than-honorable discharges," Shulkin testified to the House
Committee on Veterans' Affairs. "I don't want to wait. We want to start
doing that.
Discharges that are other-than-honorable, including a "general"
discharge, are known as "bad paper" and can prevent veterans from
receiving federal benefits, such as health care, disability payments,
education and housing assistance.
Lawmakers and veterans advocates have said service members with bad
paper were, in many cases, unjustly released from the military because
of mental health issues. They estimate 22,000 veterans with mental
illnesses have received other-than-honorable discharges since 2009.
Shulkin's announcement Tuesday follows a recent push from Rep. Mike
Coffman, R-Colo., to force the VA to provide emergency mental health
care to veterans with other-than-honorable discharges. Coffman
introduced a bill last month requiring the VA to do so.
Shulkin credited Coffman for "changing my whole view of this."
The plan was announced in response to a question during the hearing
about how Shulkin would attempt to prevent veteran suicides. In addition
to providing care to veterans with bad paper, the VA secretary also
told lawmakers that he wanted to hire approximately 1,000 more mental
health care providers.
"Our concern is those are some of the people that right now aren't
getting the services and contributing to this unbelievably unacceptable
number of veterans suicides," Shulkin said.
He said he's notifying medical centers about the change and that he'd
like to implement a program sometime in the next few months.
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