The Medical Evaluation Parity for Servicemembers Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, just a few minutes ago, I cast an affirmative vote for the National Defense Authorization Act for 2016. However, I do have great concern over an important measure which was all but removed from the legislation we voted on today.

Earlier this year, I authored the Medical Evaluation Parity for Servicemembers, or MEPS, Act. The MEPS Act would improve military suicide prevention by instituting a mental health assessment for all incoming military recruits, which can be used as a baseline for evaluations throughout their military careers. The conferenced version of the NDAA merely calls for the Department of Defense to continue to study such a screening.

Mr. Speaker, this issue has been studied thoroughly over the past several years. I strongly urge the Pentagon to act quickly to take steps in better assessing the mental health of our servicemen and -women with a commonsense baseline evaluation.

A recent Army study found that nearly one in five Army soldiers enter the service with a psychiatric disorder, and nearly half of all soldiers who tried suicide first attempted it before enlisting.

I call on the Pentagon to stop studying to death the death of our soldiers. Mr. Speaker, we need to act now.

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