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Where Does VA Stand Compared to Other Countries?
The Veterans Administration
Many Veterans have Deep Animosity for the Veterans Administration
How Do We Compare with Other Countries Who Have Active Veterans? Are We Really Behind or Leading the Pack?
by Ed Mattson
Over this past year we have been hammering the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense pretty hard over the issues of Agent Orange and other toxins; support for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and eminent budget cuts which have already been seen in the recent increases in Tri-Care. Perhaps it is time to discuss a few of the great things the VA does do.
As I have been writing veterans affairs articles for both Veterans Today and other on-line news groups, it has been easy to detect from comment letters that many veterans have deep animosity for the military, the Veterans Administration, and for the US government.
One doesn’t have to be a genius to recognize that the bitterness expressed is deeply felt and right or wrong, comes from a personal experience. The preponderance of negativism comes from those who served during the Vietnam era, yet 91% of the veterans from that era are proud of the fact that they did serve.
So, I decided to see what I could find about how the United States treats its veterans to the way other countries care for theirs not knowing exactly what I would find. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this before because many of the veterans who have written in response to my articles voice a less-than-complimentary opinion of our government and life here in the States.
Having traveled to many countries, I have always challenged those writers to find a better place to live than the US and I would gladly purchase them a one-way, no-return ticket. That may appear to be a bit arrogant, but having lived elsewhere (though only on a temporary basis), I like most Americans, am glad I live here. By the way… I have yet to have anyone take me up on my offer.
Anyway, that being said, I dug up a US Government Accounting Office Report that, though a decade old, is a very well documented outline comparing the various benefits for disabled veterans of Germany, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Finland. While it doesn’t cover all the countries around the globe, I think it still represents for most of us, six different lifestyles, economies, and perceptions held by most Americans, that they have standards of living comparable to the U.S.
While each country’s offering of programs is very different, there is general consistency in the services and benefits available to support a Veteran’s re-establishment to civilian life following a transition from military service.
For the most part, Canada and Australia most closely resemble the “wellness” approach practiced in the United Kingdom and the U.S., with the exception of dental care.
On individual merit, there were strikingly different approaches to caring for disabled veterans when broken down into category. This to me, would probably be due to the fact that the US is widely recognized as the world’s policeman, spends far more on military expenditures than the five representative countries in the report and nearly 50% of the entire world’s military expenditures (our veteran population is far more apt to be exposed to the possibilities of becoming disabled than say a soldier from Finland).
I believe that from the information presented on treatment of the disabled, one can deduce that treatment of veterans, in general, would be similar if a comparison were to be made.
The delivery of benefits to disabled veterans in the United States can be categorized into the specific areas listed below.
None of the other countries demonstrated significant other benefits that needed to be noted, and none offered such a wide array of programs.
So the report concentrated on these areas for the basis of comparison:
US. Benefits to Disabled Veterans
Compensation for service-connected disabilities. This program provides
cash benefits to veterans and their survivors for disabilities resulting from
injuries or diseases that are incurred or aggravated during active military
service.Veterans are not forgotten by the country they serve
Compensation for disabled war veterans based on need (called the
Pension program in the United States). This program provides cash to
permanently and totally disabled wartime veterans and their survivors,
usually for non-service-connected disabilities, based on their financial
need.Military disability retirement, This program, administered by the Department of Defense, provides cash benefits to active-duty service members who become physically unfit to perform duties required of their grade, office, rank, or rating, and their survivors. This program provides comprehensive health care to eligible veterans and some dependents and survivors.
Education benefits. This program provides cash for the educational needs of veterans and, in some cases, their dependents and survivors.
Job assistance. These programs fund training and job placement assistance, including set-aside preferences for federal civil service employment for veterans with service-connected disabilities and some dependents and survivors, as well as some soon-to-be, newly enacted preferences for employment in the private sector.
Housing benefits. This program provides a guaranty to lenders against financial loss pertaining to the acquisition, building, refinance, or repair of a home by veterans, active-duty military personnel, and certain surviving spouses.
Burial benefits. This program provides burial in national cemeteries for veterans, spouses, and dependent children and allowances on behalf of disabled veterans and their survivors for such items as headstones, plots, and flags.
Life insurance. This program provides life insurance to military personnel and certain veterans largely at their own expense.
Major Similarities and Differences
- Most countries provide specific health care programs for disabled veterans. The United States is the only country that provides educational benefits to veterans.
- Job assistance. The United States and two other countries, Canada, and Germany, have job assistance programs specifically for veterans (disabled and otherwise), but the United States, in the soon-to-be-enacted legislation will also have private sector job creation employment benefits as well.
- Only The United States and Canada have life insurance programs for disabled veterans
- Needs-based compensation is provided to survivors by the United States and four of the other
Countries. - Survivors military disability retirement benefits are computed differently among the countries, but all are not equal. No opinion was expressed which was more lucrative, just that all countries recognize the need and do provide such benefits.
- All of the countries in the study provide housing related benefits to all veterans, although the types of benefits differ widely. The United States assists veterans in buying a home by providing loan guarantees. PLUS the U.S. provides grants to veterans who are severely disabled for adapting their homes to manage their disability or gaining handicap access. Additionally, the benefits extend to $40,000 of mortgage life insurance (to cover these home adaptations), with premiums to be paid by the veteran. Some of the other countries provide home buying assistance, while others provide funds for home adaptation, but none provide both.
- All countries provide burial benefits for veterans. The three European countries, however, limit these benefits to veterans whose death was the result of, or who had service-connected disabilities.
- The United States and two other countries, Australia and Germany, offer special health care benefits to survivors, but the United States provides more types of benefits to veteran survivors than the other countries included in the study.
- U.S. survivor’s education benefits differ from the other countries, and the United States is the only country, that provides education benefits for surviving spouses. Other countries provide educational benefits only to the children of disabled or deceased veterans.
- The United States is one of three counties, the other two are Australia and Germany, that provide survivor burial benefits. In the U.S., spouses and dependent children of living and deceased veterans–whether disabled or not-are eligible to be buried in a national cemetery. In Australia, widows and children of deceased veterans are eligible for a grant to help pay for funeral costs. In Germany, funeral benefits are provided to (1) a widow who leaves a child who has rights to orphans’ compensation or (2) other survivors who have a right to compensation.
- And lastly, in using hypothetical cases the United States would compensate for more types of disabilities than the other countries.
Despite all of our nation’s foibles and short-comings, our Veterans Administration, in general, is not shirking its duties to the veteran. We may have our differences as to the treatment of diseases from toxic chemicals, and the need for more support for PTSD, but these are being remedied by legal proceedings and the appeals process as frustrating as that is to those in the position of being denied benefits.
Our veteran benefits are world class by comparison to other countries. Our goal today is to keep the programs intact and not be swallowed up under the bureaucratic maze of budget cut-backs. Friday let’s look at the job assistance benefit in detail, especially the new proposal presented to Congress.
Short URL: http://www.veteranstoday.com/?p=140626
Posted by Ed Mattson on Sep 14 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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You have no idea.
I posted a previous comment and it did not post – of the nightmare that my family went through.
The comparition sounds very good for what VA has to offer. .
Yet, it would be interesting to compare , if vets in other countries have to jump through the same hoops, as american vets to get compansation for combat or/and service related injuries and sicknesses.
It would be interesting as well, to compare, the waiting times for cases or appeals on average.
You know Mr. Mattson when I wrote to you yesterday to explain just a small protion of what I had been through with the VA, etc. I had no idea that you would actually SUGAR COAT it to make the VA out to be actually doing what it is supposed to be! THEY ARE NOT!
Are you a veteran? Have you dealt with the VA first hand? I would bet NOT from this article!
I am very upset at what you wrote here! Maybe you forgot this country, “Republic”, made a promise to take care of veterans, not to put them through illegal acts, falsely blame their families for illnesses, not protect their Civil and HIPAA Rights, and not to have their employees commit crimes against veterans, or be ABOVE THE LAW!
As bad as I feel (pysically) I would love to show you actual documentation of actual CRIMES I have been subject to by the “VA System”, and see how your “preconceived” conception changes then! If needed I will hire someone to help me with getting my documentation together!
You sure you don’t secretly work for the criminal (Born Out of TREASON) Dept. of Homeland Security, and also tryinfg to discredit the ONLY Real Patriots of this “Republic”, like they did in the April 2009 Report on rightwing extremism?
I don’t give a dam what other countries do! I did not serve for them! I served for the US “Republic”!
Why don’t you mention how our crimianl leaders are violating their sworn Oaths, or how they get a cost of living increase plus at least every year, while we get nothing but crap from the VA? And our leaders do not do as we ask anymore anyway!
As far as I am concerned right now you are an enemy of all Veterans! Oh that’s right your a ZIONIST anyway! I forgot!
Remember 9/11, and The USS Liberty, both done by the same COWARDS!
Restore the US Constitution!
US “Republic” First, Always!
US Army Veteran,
Marc C. Daniele
Herculaneum, Mo.
Thanks for the article Ed. One comment on this statement about life insurance “Only The United States and Canada have life insurance programs for disabled veterans” while technically true I know personally that 100% disabled veterans from Australia who while they don’t get a life insurance benefit per se their spouses or significant others(Yes they recognize same sex relationships) get their benefits for their lives even if they outlive their spouses for 40 years or more and it’s 100% free (No deductions or Co-Pays like ours). Their compensation pay is on par with ours for 100% disabled and their significant others also get free medical for life and can use their “gold card” at any hospital or Doctors office they choose in the country. Not only at a VA Facility like in America unless it’s an emergency. Plus they receive their pay every two weeks (or fortnightly) and because of that receive and additional payment per annum so they receive 27 bi-weekly payments per year versus our 12 monthly payments thus receiving 2 weeks pay per year vs. our system. Other than that I believe the article is correct. And the Australians Veterans dislike their VA system also as they have to jump through hoops also to get recognized as disabled. Probably just human nature! Thanks again. Fred
Been reading the propaganda-dripping VA publicity propaganda again, eh? As others have observed, you’re lying, plain and simple. The VA exists entirely for the union dominated VA employees and Veterans come much further down the list of priorities.
Have you tried to APPLY for any of these “wonderful” benefits you describe? Would imagine not or you wouldn’t be so happy about them. Have you seen a VA doctor lately? Would imagine not as most of the doctors are gone and we are now treated by nurses or P.A.s or whoever might have found a white coat in a closet.
Been treated to any VA employee attitudes lately? Would imagine not or you would still be fuming about it. I served my nation honorably, bravely and with pride. I do not deserve to be treated the way these spoiled brat VA employees treat me and most other Vets.
According to the VA headhunter site, the average VA healthcare employee earns $140K per year. Stack their diamond-studded healthcare and retirement benefits on that and one realises these employees are living “high on the hog” on the backs of us Vets. One would think they would be at least grateful to us for that. Nope. It’s “take a number, sit down and shut up”.
It sounds a hell of a lot like someone got paid big money to write these lies. Make any big purchases lately?
With due disrespect,
Sarg
Sarg,
I appreciate your reply, but I don’t think you understand that a report about a given report is not opinion. I did not write the GAO Report and had you taken the time to follow my footnotes you could have read the dastardly long report for yourself outlining the different veterans programs. My job as a writer is outlined below on the second letter I received blaming the report on me. rather than be redundant, I just copied it in below.I have been as, if not more critical of the VA than most if you have been following my articles. I thought it was time to compare systems with other countries.
By the way…murder is against the law, so is driving beyond the speed limit and robbing banks…people still do it. Rules are rule, policies and procedures and written to govern programs, but that doesn’t mean everybody follow the doctrine all the time. I have many friends I have quarried who have not and will not bash the VA and even take flack from some of them because I have been so critical. I also dislike most politician but I am sure some are still honestly trying to do what’s right for the country and not just do what they think will get them re-elected, but I am almost always critical of those folks as well.
If you don’t like the message it doesn’t do any good to shoot the messenger. You should know that from the politician that sent you off to war. You did your job because that’s the way it was. Many Americans didn’t appreciate it but a hell of lot other did. Here’s the text of my response in its entirety, to the first negative response I received
“We have communicated many times. This time you are so wrong. Did you not understand my article was a report about a GAO report on the differences of how nations treat their veterans? That wasn’t my report; I had nothing to do with it.
Frustration often leads to name calling. You called me a Zionist, which by definition is…”the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel”. What the heck does that have to do with the story about the document I wrote about? And, by the way, I am a veteran (Corps), a Lutheran (not always the best by any stretch of the imagination), and I have never had to use the services of the VA. Knock on wood, my health has been great for 67 years.I have had outside insurance and now Medicare (which has a million problems LIKE ALL GOVERNMENT RUN PROGRAMS).
As to being a “Zionist”, that’s nuts. I am probably a lot more conservative that you and a few other veterans because I believe government in general, is one great big cluster F*&#, and it hasn’t made much difference who ends up in power, by their 3rd re-elected term they are all so crooked they could hid behind a corkscrew, regardless of party affiliation. I’m sick and tired of them taking my tax money and spending it on worthless programs.
My brother on the other hand has spent the last couple years with the VA for treatment of infectious cellulitis in the testicles…a life-threatening problem. Throughout his whole ordeal I have stayed in close contact and on many occasions sought his opinion of the entire VA system via his experience at the VA in Omaha. He would not say a single derogatory remark and even got a bit angry with me over my many articles I have written about the VA. I have been most critical of the AO issue and PTSD. As to taking up “a cause”, my involvement with the Agent Orange Group, helping Leslie Dalhke Moore (a USO volunteer exposed to AO who has been fight cancer since the mid 1970′s), and trying to get a group of attorneys to once and for all, take all the known information and go after the government through a “class action” suit. I’d even work pro bono with them lining up the medical argument (in my first life my area of study was cancer research) on what AO does to the cell structure in humans, which is powerful beyond belief. This is not what writers do, but it needs to be done.
Would you expect a journalist from the Sacramento Bee of the Washington Post to take on “a cause”? Does that not destroy the objectiveness they must have to write about issues that need to be brought to light? Agent Orange is one exception because is has been one cover-up after another; one pack of lies and distortion after another, and was actually “a human experiment” (as I wrote about in my Joseph Mengela article a couple months back) with willful disregard to those deploying the chemicals and to those on the ground, both friend and foe.
I am far from being an enemy of all veterans as you say, but then again you are free to have your opinion. The article I wrote, again was not my assessment of the VA, nor was it intended to portray the VA in a good light. It was meant to tell the facts as seen by the GAO and how our VA differs form other countries treatment of their veterans”
Comparisons with other countries based on a decade old Government Accounting Office Report would leave out all veterans’ issues arising from the incompetence of the Bush Presidency, and years of terrible problems added by the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War.
“The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive the Veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated by their nation.”
- George Washington
Yet, despite the aforementioned warning from George Washington, the vast majority of the electorate in the USA (mainly women and others) consists of those who are unable and/or unwilling to serve in the US Military, especially the combat arms. This electoral majority has granted itself economic, social, political, and cultural privilege over veterans while, at the same time, denigrating those male traditional male virtues which are requisite for an effective military (honor, courage, self control, and an egalitarian attitude). Thus, serving in the U.S. military, especially for draftees and those who serve for a limited time, is not rewarded by our society and government, but punished by the same which is controlled by an electorate which seeks to exploit and denigrate those who serve and who might serve. Washington was right as the relative and absolute number of American men willing and/or able to serve in the U.S. Military, especially the combat arms, has declined significantly since the War in Vietnam.
.. .RIGHT ON!!!!!!
Ed,
I did not call you a Zionist. I have no dog in that fight. I do have a dog in fighting for these guys and gals coming back from these fabricated wars. It’s like no one even gives a damn. These kids are coming back much more messed up than we did with Nam. You guys remember the folks that did more than one tour, you remember how messed up they were, multiply that by a factor of five, six tours.
They need our help, but are real reluctant to reach out. We need to reach out, try to help them pull this poison out before it becomes indelibly imprinted upon them like us Nam Vets. And everybody seems to just ho hum through the whole damn system.
Yeah, I’m hard on the system. The system was hard on me. Probably will continue to be so. But if I can get some angry enough to turn to these folks and do something for them, right now, it’s worth whatever abuse I go through.
Were you reporting a report, it dripped warm and fuzzy. Things are not warm and fuzzy. Why lead people to believe so? Do some equal time and do some reporting on the OIG reports. Productivity reports?
To end this, we are losing 18 sons and daughters by their own hand each day. This has to stop, now!
Sarg
John,
I hammer the bozos in almost every article. I have a dozen vets I’m working with to help resolve their issues. I know the system has many flaws and they need to be addressed. It would be great to be able to find documentation on how other systems work because every government program we have in this country seems to be inherently flawed even though intentions are well meaning. I have vets with cancer looking for help (my field was cancer research); I get vets with suicidal tendencies writing me wanting to end it all. I feel like a card dealer shuffling a deck trying to find help for those in need.
You are right, we all need to be concerned and there for those we can help.
It is very difficult to get to the bottom of many of the individual problems because medical records are confidential. It takes a release from the patient. Investigative reporting looking for problems becomes an impossible task.
Gen Owings and or Col Roberts who are the top dogs with Warrior2citizen program and I discuss the suicide rate and what can be done on a weekly basis. A lot of resources are being directed to solving the problem, but like all such efforts, making headway does take time. The average Vietnam Vet infantryman spent 240 day during a tour in the line of enemy fire. In WWII the average infantryman saw 120-140 days in four years facing enemy fire. In the Middle East with multiple tours, I imagine the exposure is even greater than Nam, but suicides are just as high for those who never see action…that’s the bugger of the whole mess.
Ed, I don’t think that anyone in the USA thinks that veterans don’t have great benefits. The problem is that some veterans have a hard time getting benefits, even when entitled to whatever they apply for. From my experience with the process, if the veteran is well educated, affluent and can manage the maze that one has to go through to get benefits, usually there is no problem, but if they are unable to manage the road blocks, they become bitter and often give up their quest for help.
David,
I think you are 100% right.I have taken up the case of several veterans and understand their frustration. I think more help is on the the way from what we have been seeing. There are many concerned and are trying to end the stonewalling.