President Signs Major Veterans’ Mental Health Bill

Oct 17, 2020

On October 17th, the President signed The Commander John Scott Hannon Veterans Mental Health Care Improvement Act into law. Named in memory of retired Navy SEAL Commander John Scott Hannon, the bill will help former service members through more research and better access to care for mental health conditions.

The law will help connect more veterans with the life-saving mental health care they need and deserve by:

• Providing suicide prevention services through veteran-serving community organizations
• Increasing accountability of mental health and suicide prevention programs at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA)
• Helping rural veterans by expanding access to VA telehealth care
• Boosting research, including creating a Precision Medicine for Veterans Initiative to identify biomarkers for mental health conditions

“Every day we lose 17 veterans to suicide. We are thankful that this law, named in memory of Commander John Scott Hannon, a NAMI Montana member, will help veterans who struggle with the invisible wounds of war,” said Daniel H. Gillison, Jr., NAMI CEO. “We need to do more to support those who have sacrificed on behalf of our country.”

NAMI is proud to have helped pass this bipartisan legislation for improving veterans’ mental health care.