I was dismayed to read this ElPaso Times news article written by Chris Roberts. The article explains the Department of Veterans Affairs policy of giving preferential treatment to "new" veterans of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans at the head of the line when processing claims for medical treatment, vocational rehabilitation, employment and education benefits.
Excuse me veterans are veterans and the VA system has always worked on a system where the oldest claims are worked first. The newer claims go to the bottom of the pile and get worked in the order received. The only exceptions were supposed to be terminally ill veterans, and we rarely ever seen them get bumped to the head of the line, many veterans have died awaiting approval of their claims, in some cases the vets have died between approvals and the back pay checks being mailed, and the VA has asked for the checks to be returned, since the veteran died before they could be cashed.
The report goes over a lot of areas that are slowing down the claims process, hiring of new employees to handle the explosion of claims, it also however explains that it takes 2-3 years to train the people who "rate" the claims, those who decide what level of compensation the disabled veterans should receive, many medical disabilities are left to subjective judgement where one rater may assign a 30% disability level another may assign a 50% or even a 70% level. Mental health issues including PTSD have many areas of contention in how they are rated, some states have few if any veterans rated at 100% P&T for it, while they may have hundreds rated 70% but being paid at the 100% level under a program called TDIU (totally disabled Individual Unemployable) given the fact the veterans can not hold down a steady job because of their symptoms, the manual states if the veteran can NOT hold a job, then they should be rated at the 100% level, not 70%.
As of Sept. 15, more than 639,000 cases are pending at regional offices, Manar said, quoting VA figures. That doesn't include about 162,000 appeal cases and an additional 74,000 education cases, he said.
VA officials acknowledge that the backlog is growing, but they say the numbers are misleading because fewer than 400,000 claims are ratings-related. Those are the most difficult because they require documentation and medical evaluations. And even if all claims were processed as quickly as possible, about 318,000 cases would be pending at any one time because of guidelines in law meant to protect veterans, they said.
Other challenges
As Vietnam veterans -- part of the baby-boom bulge -- retire, Veterans Affairs will face other challenges.
Psychological studies of Holocaust survivors show that many develop symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder after they retire, when they have time to slow down and reflect on their lives, Manar said. The same appears to be happen to Vietnam veterans.
Given the fact there is over 800,000 claims in the VA system, it will be years before many of these veterans and their families see the benefits they deserve. Many will lose their homes, their cars, trucks, many will end up divorced due to the financial stress of waiting on the VA.
Doctor Linda Blimes of Harvard presented this suggestion to the Congress in testimony back in September, the veterans would be better served in the VA adopted this policy either voluntarily or under the force of Congress:
President Bush is now talking about spending more money on recruiting in order to boost the size of the Army and deploy more troops to Iraq. But what about taking care of those soldiers when they return home? The VA's solution is to hire an additional 1,000 claims adjudicators to cut the backlog.
A better idea would be to stop examining each application and instead automatically accept all disability claims, then audit a sample (like the IRS does for tax filings) to weed out fraud. Or at a minimum, simple claims should be fast-tracked and settled within 60 days. We should also place more counselors and more claims experts in the Vet Centers and harmonize recordkeeping so veterans can move seamlessly from the Army's payroll into VA hospitals and outpatient care.
One of the first votes facing the new Democratic-controlled Congress will be another "supplemental" budget request for $100 billion-plus to keep the war going. The last Congress approved a dozen such requests with barely a peep, afraid of "not supporting our troops." If the new Congress really wants to support our troops, it should start by spending a few more pennies on the ones who have already fought and come home.
This excerpt comes from this Harvard website then there is this link to her report on the estimated costs of caring for our nations wounded of the "terror wars"
I am asking everyone that reads this to please write or call your Congress Reps or your Senators and let them know that we think the best solution to get our veterans cared for is to accept DR Blimes suggestion to handle claims in the approve within 60 days after claim submitted, then if there is doubts to the validity to the claim, investigate it like the IRS does after the fact and if fraud is involved, prosecute the veterans making the false claims and jail them for 10 years, for outright fraudulent claims but if the level of disability is in question then adjust future payments to recoup and excess over paid upfront.
I just happen to think that wounded veterans should NOT have to deal with financial ruin while awaiting adjudication by the government agency that it's sole function is to CARE for them. Yes, fraud is a problems, but prosecute the criminals and start getting help to the disabled in a timely fashion, 3-5 years of appeals is not timely and is insult to injury.
Enough is enough, this program has been a mess since the Korean War and with computers this is just NOT acceptable. Why are veterans compensation claims still handled in paper files 2-6 feet thick and have to be trucked around the cities and nation to the proper office's and yes they are losing some of the files, which require the vet to start over.
We keep hearing that this is the 21st Century, can Congress please make the VA join it, make the claims process digital.
Please join me in contacting your elected officials to demand faster claim determination for our veterans.
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