The Medical Evaluation Parity for Service Members Act

Floor Speech

Mr. THOMPSON of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, despite the recent military drawdown, our Nation continues to rely upon qualified and well-trained volunteers joining the military in order to regenerate our Armed Forces. Now, some of these young men and women have prepared their entire lives for service, while others found the call to duty some years later. All have chosen to serve their country in uniform and do so with honor and bravery.

When joining the service, new recruits must undergo comprehensive medical and physical examinations in order to certify they are both fully fit and capable of performing the range of rigorous and demanding jobs our military must carry out. However, Mr. Speaker, despite comprehensive physical and medical evaluations, there is no similar examination for mental health competency; meaning, we thoroughly examine knees, backs, eyes, and even the heart, yet leave the most important part of the body--one's mind--off-limits.

Now, this is certainly cause for concern and what some view as a serious gap in recruitment evaluation, especially as the military continues to address issues of behavioral health, posttraumatic stress disease, traumatic brain injury, and suicide. According to a recent Army study, 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. Additionally, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that a large percentage of suicides in the military were individuals who had never been deployed in a combat role.

Mr. Speaker, as policymakers, we have a responsibility to address this challenge. And this week, Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan and I plan to call on our colleagues to do just that and to join as cosponsors of the Medical Evaluation Parity for Service Members, or MEPS, Act. This bipartisan bill will institute a preliminary mental health assessment at the time recruits are first joining the military.

Keeping individual privacy in mind, the MEPS Act will follow all HIPAA guidelines and cannot be used in consideration for promotion or assignments. Additionally, the Congressional Budget Office has found the MEPS Act to have no budgetary effect.

In addition, this legislation requires the National Institute of Mental Health, in conjunction with the Department of Veterans Affairs and other experts, to report their recommendations on the assessment to ensure best practices are done. Now, this commonsense proposal seeks to bring mental health to parity with physical health and recruitment evaluations and will ensure that our incoming troops are both physically and mentally fit to serve.

Additionally, the bill has the support of the American Psychological Association, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Guard Association of the United States, the Reserve Officers Association, the Reserve Enlisted Association, and the Association of the U.S. Navy.

Mr. Speaker, the MEPS Act is not, alone, the magic silver bullet to solve all of the behavioral health issues the military faces, but it is an important step in better understanding the scope of the challenge that we face. Now, I encourage my fellow colleagues to join us in this effort to protect the safety and security of those in uniform by becoming a cosponsor of the Medical Evaluation Parity for Service Members Act. These brave men and women deserve as much.

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