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Vets for Common Sense Reacts to New VBA Appts and Million-claim backlog
Widely regarded as the most effective and honest veterans’ advocacy organization, Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) expressed cautious optimism today on news of two new Veterans Benefit Administration (VBA) appointments. VCS said in a statement to Veterans Today and MAL Contends that it “remains highly concerned there are several remaining top officials at VBA who failed to resolve VBA’s million-claim backlog for a decade or longer. In order for VBA reform to be robust and successful, several personnel changes are urgently needed.”
Said Paul Sullivan, Executive Director of Veterans for Common Sense:
Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) is pleased to learn President Barack Obama nominated a new Under Secretary for Benefits at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
VCS looks forward to learning more about the nominee, Brigadier General Allison Hickey, USAF, Retired, and how she plans to continue VA Secretary Eric Shinseki’s progressive and pragmatic reforms at the Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA).
VCS understands several new positions, such as Deputy Under Secretaries, were created recently at VBA. We support creating the new positions as essential for VBA strategic planning and long-term coordination of several large-scale reforms intended to reduce the number of veterans waiting long periods of time for VBA to decide veterans’ disability compensation claims.
According to VA reports, more than one million veterans are now waiting, on average, five months for VBA to decide a claim. More than 200,000 veterans are now waiting, on average, four more years for the Board of Veterans Appeals to decide an appealed claim.
Our top concern is VA’s implementation of new PTSD benefit regulations, a move strongly supported by VCS. VA’s new PTSD rules are vital for our veterans because they provide streamlined access to healthcare and disability compensation for veterans with psychological trauma resulting from deployment to a war zone.
We urge VA Secretary Shinseki to quickly release detailed information about the number of claims filed by veterans under the new PTSD rules. This includes the number granted (and their ratings) and the number denied each month. We also want to know the length of time to process the claims and the accuracy of VBA’s decisions in order to determine if VA’s new rules are improving VA’s timeliness and quality.
We close with a note of caution. VCS remains highly concerned there are several remaining top officials at VBA who failed to resolve VBA’s million-claim backlog for a decade or longer. In order for VBA reform to be robust and successful, several personnel changes are urgently needed.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=71407
Posted by Yanira Farray on Jan 6 2011, With 0 Reads, Filed under Benefits, Vet News, Veterans Affairs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
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Mr. Macdonald,
If we can get a coherent, fact-based narrative of your situation; we are happy to run with it.
Nothing the VA or the Pentagon has done will come as a great surprise.
Keep writing!
Mike
Good reply, Mike.
T.V.
Well said Mike.
Dale R. Suiter
The backlog of cases going back to 1970′s is all related to the SPN, SDN, or SPD code found on DD-214. Take a veterans VA CLAIM NO: not SSN, but the U.S. Treasury Claim No: give it a phony name, and pay phony. Real vet is told ” claim denied “, documents shredded in 42 of 57 VARO’S. Don’t you get it, there will always be a backlog as long as they can LOOT BILLIONS FROM V.A. Ask Sec. Shinseki about that NEW computer system started in APRIL 2009 in V.A.I.G.’S Office to LOOK AT HISTORICAL PAYMENT OF VETS V.A. CLAIM NO: Suggestion, look gift horse in the mouth for a change, not up the horses ass. No light at end of that tunnel.
I think Edwin is on to something here. The VA is little more than a feeding trough for whatever backstabbing freemason parasites that wants to slither up to it.
God knows the bazillion dollar budget the VA gets aint going to us veterans.
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Where the heck do they get the figure of a 5 month avg. for claim processing. Try 2 years or longer.
I agree. I kept getting those “we are still working on your claim” letters for years and years. Finally in order to keep my sanity, I took it to a lawyer and let them get heartburn about it. Finally it has been REMANDED and the VA has been told to address the depression, adjustment disorder and PTSD (residuals of the other VA compensated disabilities), so basically dealing with the VA has drove me nuts. In about a year after seeing the VA (for far more appointments) I’ll have good news. Meantime the SSDI has been approved (for Scoliosis) so it isn’t all bad.
Patience, research centered persistent effort does produce positive results. I understand anger, disgust, disappointment, disagreement that is repeated over and over again. none of these emoitons will, however have a postive impact on a Vet’s case. Records, rules, the law and never giving up – no matter the bureaucratic burden pays off for the Vet in the end. Remember, VA employees (when – after repeated efforts you get to a live person) are people. They didn’t create the system, they simply work within it. Being civil to them gets results. Anger with them is not productive for the Vets case. Case backlog is not – in my view – going to go away. Follow up, follow up, follow up. Work with each other too – folks. We are the best at helping each other!
Hang in there
Dale R. Suiter
Mr. Suiter,
First I am sorry that I do not have the time to post a coherent, single paragraph, response that would encapsulate everything I try to say here.
Second, sorry for the pseudonym, but it has been my repeated experience that anything even slightly less than flattering to any politician or government agency merely gets hatred launched your way, in more than one fashion, going back for decades, while serving in the military.
I have seen your comments in several different settings and believe that you are sincere and honest in your thoughts and guidance. I would comment on a few things as this:
1) I had a home in Pensacola for a while and I’m familiar with the Rep. there – Mr. Miller –and also with some of his Military Academy friends who have helped his political fortunes. I will be very surprised if he actually does anything that helps a Vet, unless it is a specific person of interest to his political future. I hope I am wrong, but normally I am not.
2) You are right in saying that the people at the VA are people and merely working ‘in the system’, but this explanation is also an excuse I have seen over and over again for denying individuals access to benefits they are entitled to! This would include the oh-so-many times I have seen payroll personnel in the military not let a young and unknowing military member receive the dislocation allowance that they are entitled to during transfer to a new area because the reqs on the topic states that the member is entitled to it ‘once they ask for it’ – I didn’t know about it for the first several times I was transferred during my long career and the transfers cost me money to make, at my country’s call! Again and again the VA is found to have people who would deny claims that are put in because they were not “proven” to be military caused, even though the LAW states that any claim has to “DISPROVED” by a VA Dr. during a C&P to not be granted! The Vets will stop being ‘impatient’ when claims aren’t backlogged for 2-5 years for things the military had already shown proof of, yet the local VA Admin keeps ILLEGALLY denying!
3) I understand that you are asking for patience and understanding and civility and follow up on the part of those who are done disservice by a corrupt system, but that, sir, is the very problem: those who need the help most are often beyond hope or dead by the time there are given their due – and I and others feel this is by design! Why did it take so long to finally ‘Roger Up’ to the claims of the Vietnam Vets?? They finally were mostly dead, or would be so soon enough to warrant 2-6 years or statistical averaged life expectancy left to give the claims their due! Mind you, the Vietnamese Government was given the Agent Orange Claims years, and years before by our government! There’s oil in the Gulf of Tonkin – Vietnam Vets were a liability until they got so old, then they could be pacified and shut-up with a meaningless admittance by their own government that they were AFU from the war! I do not hold an enemy of the USA as more deserving of VA benefits than the actual US Vets who fought, but our shared government does!
4) Know that while I am quite aware that civility is becoming a lost art, I do also feel that so is a rational approach to responsibility. I do not think the Congress, the Supreme Court, much less the current and last three POTUS’s have either. Not until another Reagan or Truman is in office, with appointees to the bench that understand the Constitution’s hardest word to understand is “enumerate” – to count – and not something to be ‘interpreted’ will we have a Union that is once again great. To that end, “We the People” need to hold every last one of them 100% responsible when they act uncivil and irresponsible to the People, especially the least fortunate, who as we speak are now (again statistically speaking…) more likely than not a Vet!
5) Vets are at the highest risk since General McArthur and his minions went to the Mall and shot them all down with machine guns, Post-WW1! They are most likely to have poverty, functional illiteracy, unemployment, medical, psychological, and almost every other type of social issue of the most vulnerable of any society! What is in the news, though? “Is Mr. Muzzammil Hassan a Domestic Abuse Victim or did he chop his wife’s head off because he’s a criminal?”… need I say more?
Please try to stay upbeat and ask the emperor about his clothing in a polite manner. Also, though, know that it is very, very hard to for some Vets to stay upbeat, patient and civil when dealing with the afore mentioned atrocities of our modern nation.