Article Highlights Government Accountability to Vets with Traumatic Brain Injuries

The collaboration between between the Solomon Center for Health Law and Policy and the Consortium for the Advanced Study of Brain Injury (CASBI) at Weill Cornell Medical College and the Rockefeller University has produced an article in the Hastings Center Bioethics Forum concerning issues of government accountability and transparency in the provision of health care to veterans with traumatic brain injuries (TBI).

Led by Michael R. Ulrich, Research Scholar, Senior Health Law Fellow, and Lecturer in Law, and Dr. Joseph J. Fins, the Solomon Center Distinguished Scholar in Medicine, Bioethics, and the Law, along with a group of five students, the group sought to track the statutory evolution of care provided through the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and the Department of Defense (DoD) to identify gaps in coverage. The students who participated, Kyle Edwards ’18, Nathan Guevremont ’18, Joel Ramirez ’18, Nina Varsava ’18, and Megan Wright ’16, worked tirelessly to track down relevant statutes and the reports these statutes required from the VA and DoD. However, after months of failed attempts to track down the reports, the group identified a new problem: a lack of transparency and ability of the public to track whether the government was following through with promises made. Tracking the group’s efforts to locate the reports, the article discusses the importance of these reports and the ability examine them, and how the inability to do so raises concerns about government accountability and transparency. Veterans returning from service with TBI are a vulnerable population who deserve to receive needed care, and this article hopes to shine a light on the fact that, as of now, we are unable to properly determine if they are.

For more information, visit:

http://www.thehastingscenter.org/lincolns-promise-congress-veterans-and-traumatic-brain-injury/