Manns Medium

Many questions surrounds why a politician like Tomas Allen Coburn would use his final act as a U.S. Senator to block a bill designed to help ease and/or eliminate the suicides of veterans.  A man who, at many times, have called himself a champion of veterans and large supporter of our troops. This same question is asked in an article titled “Tom Coburn Blocks Bill On Veterans' Suicide Prevention” by Matthew Daly for the Associated Press.  Mr. Daily reports that “Veterans groups blasted Oklahoma Sen. Tom Coburn Monday for blocking a bill intended to reduce a suicide epidemic that claims the lives of 22 military veterans every day.  "This is why people hate Washington," said Paul Rieckhoff, CEO and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, an advocacy group. Rieckhoff accused Coburn of single-handedly blocking a bill that could save the lives of thousands of veterans. Coburn, a Republican, is retiring after 10 years in the Senate. In a floor speech Monday ni...

Heard a story about this new bill working its way through Congress called “The Clay Hunt Suicide Prevention for America Veterans Act” on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC.  This bill calls for independent evaluations of all mental health-care and suicide-prevention programs in VA and the Defense Department, a student loan repayment program that would offer up to $120,000 per year to recruit psychiatrists who commit to working for VA, and a program that would take back unneeded prescription drugs from patients at VA facilities.  Now while all this may sound good and is needed much of it is actually worthless in solving the problem of veteran suicide.  Clay Hunt’s mother said that after he finally got in to see a  psychiatric , he called her and said that he was not going back, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA)  and other veterans groups believe to solve this problem VA needs more psychiatrist.  Both completely ignoring the fact that mor...