Obama signs executive order to improve veterans' mental healthcare

By Jeremy Herb - 08/31/12 11:57 AM ET

President Obama will sign an executive order Friday to make improvements to mental healthcare and suicide prevention services for veterans, which he will announce in a speech at Fort Bliss in Texas.

The executive order instructs the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to hire 800 peer-to-peer support counselors for mental healthcare and to increase the VA veteran crisis line's capacity by 50 percent before the end of the year.

The order also tells the VA to work with the Defense Department to develop a national suicide prevention campaign, and for the VA, DOD and Health and Human Services to conduct a study about the causes and treatments of post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

The veterans-focused executive order comes as Obama is visiting Fort Bliss on the two-year anniversary of his announcement at the same location that ended combat operations in Iraq.

“The visit will focus on, I think, that important anniversary,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said Thursday. “It will also focus on the fact that the president has always said that part of ending the war in Iraq responsibly is standing by those who served.”

The presidential campaigns of Obama and Mitt Romney have both made a concerted effort to reach out to veterans. In a speech at the American Legion convention Wednesday — which Romney left the Republican convention on Wednesday to give — Romney criticized Obama for not doing enough to solve the problems at the VA, including long waits for mental health patients to get treatment.

“Veterans face unconscionable waits for mental health treatment,” Romney said. “The problems with the VA are serious, and must be fixed. We are in danger of another generation of veterans losing their faith in VA system. On my watch, that will not be allowed to happen.”