The debt-ceiling debate and the subsequent vote on the bill in the eleventh-hour that prevented the country from going into default was historic for reasons other than it being the first time the legislature seriously considered defaulting on its debt.

 

Representative Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) walked into the House of Representatives and cast her first vote since being wounded in the January 8th shooting in Arizona. Despite the weeks of petulant partisan bickering, everyone in the room stood up and applauded her return and the legislators and the media alike tossed around the word “historic” as if buying that word in bulk had been a part of the deal. That she was able to walk into the House of Representatives and cast this vote so recently after her injuries was a triumph but also not without irony. The entire uproar around the debt and the problems the American economy faces centers around the desire to cut federal spending and reduce the debt. Raising taxes is not an option this close to an election and it would be political suicide for anyone to put their targets on Medicare or Social Security, thus defense spending is the largest chunk of the federal budget that stands to be cut.

 

Yet, according to Military.com, Rep. Giffords’s treatments and therapies would not have been possible were it not for the advancements made treating veterans who have similar injuries. Given the media attention surrounding her attack and the fact that she is a member of Congress, Rep. Giffords had access to all of the best treatments and, thankfully, they worked. The irony is that with Washington tightening its purse strings, veterans themselves do not always have easy access to these treatments.

 

TRICARE will not cover cognitive rehabilitation therapy – the therapy that allows victims of TBI to re-learn walking, talking, and other basic life skills – unless “medically necessary and appropriate care keeping with accepted norms for medical practice in the U.S.” Since this therapy isn’t “proven effective” according to the Military.com article and is often not covered.

 

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) won the Iowa Straw Poll this weekend and is considered to be in the “top tier,” of Presidential candidates more than six months away from the first primary elections and caucuses. Yet, back in January, she advocated cutting $4.5 billion in disability payments to wounded veterans. At first she called these “real and necessary” cuts but a week later, removed these cuts from consideration after facing a backlash from both her supporters and veterans’ service organizations. Still, at the debate before the Iowa Straw Poll, neither she nor any of the candidates on the stage in anyway committed to protecting veterans’ benefits, calling them “real and necessary” expenditures of tax dollars, or even mentioned veterans at all.