Panel Calls for Improved Veterans Care

President Bush, left, along with outgoing Veteran Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson, center, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, right, take part in a meeting in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, Wednesday, July 25, 2007, with the co-chairs of the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors, former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, and former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala, not shown. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais) (Pablo Martinez Monsivais - AP)

_Boost staff and money for Walter Reed until it closes in the coming years. Also urges Pentagon to work with the VA to create "integrated care teams" of doctors and nurses to see injured troops through their recovery.

_Restructure the disability pay systems to give the VA more responsibility for awarding benefits.

_Require comprehensive training programs in post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries for military leaders, VA and Pentagon personnel.

_Create a "My eBenefits" Web site, developed jointly by the VA and Pentagon, that would let service members and doctors access private medical information as the injured move from facility to facility to receive treatment.

_Provide better family support, because one-third of injured Iraq war veterans reported that a family member or close friend had to relocate to care for them. It calls for training and counseling for families of service members who require long-term care and improved family leave and insurance benefits for family members.

"We owe our wounded soldiers the very best care, and the very best benefits, and the very easiest to understand system," Bush said. "And so they took a very interesting approach. They took the perspective from the patient, as the patient had to work his way through the hospitals and bureaucracies. And they've come up with some very interesting and important suggestions."

Bush created the panel March 6 to investigate problems in the treatment of wounded veterans following the disclosures at Walter Reed.

The White House event followed the Senate's vote by unanimous consent on legislation that seeks to end inconsistencies in disability pay by providing for a special review of cases in which service members received low ratings of their level of disability. The aim is to determine if they were shortchanged.

The bill also would boost severance pay and provide $50 million for improved diagnosis of veterans with traumatic brain injury or post-traumatic stress disorder. The House was considering similar measures.

"It has been hurry up and wait for the results of this commission report and now the White House is telling our vets to wait even longer," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. "That's why the Senate has moved ahead with our Wounded Warriors Act. The public is waiting, our veterans are waiting."

Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq & Afghanistan Veterans of America, agreed.

"It is important for the American public to understand that the Walter Reed fiasco is not over," he said. "Everything is not fixed. The follow-through will be the most important part."