McCaskill, Obama want more help for vets' medical care

ST. LOUIS -- Concerned that soldiers battling in Iraq wind up fighting their own government for adequate medical care when they return home, two Democratic senators said Tuesday they're joining together on reform legislation.

Presidential hopeful Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and freshman Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said they are working on legislation to improve veterans' care, including reforms to how they are treated as outpatients while still active military members.

The legislation would require more frequent hospital inspections, establish timelines for repairs to facilities that don't meet standards and improve access to psychological counseling, Obama's office said in a statement.

It aims to simplify the amount of paperwork, improve the ratio of caseworkers to recovering soldiers and step up caseworkers' training, the senators said.

"Basically, this legislation will try to force feed the kind of care that we all want these men and women to have after they have fought in Iraq," McCaskill said at a news conference in St. Louis.

"It is wrong that any American would sign up, volunteer to fight in a war, receive debilitating injuries in that war, and return home to face another war to receive the care and benefits that they deserve," she said.

McCaskill said she began working on the legislation after reading in The Washington Post this weekend about problems in outpatient treatment and patient care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington. The Pentagon has announced plans to close Walter Reed by 2011.

She said the problems detailed in the Post article -- including moldy rooms and signs of rodents and cockroaches -- made her physically ill. The legislation wouldn't just clean up one medical center, rather it would aim to correct larger problems soldiers are experiencing in their care.

McCaskill said she learned Obama was working on similar legislation and they combined the effort. They expect to introduce it next week.

"The brave men and women wounded at war should receive the best we have to offer and the highest quality of care, and that's why this legislation would cut red tape, improve service, and require frequent inspections of all active-duty military hospitals," Obama said in a statement.