VA backlog fails ailing veterans: Our view
The Editorial Board, USATODAY 7:57 p.m. EDT August 21, 2013
Those filing new disability claims could wait a year or more.
The backlog of claims more than four months old stands at almost a half-million.
VA has required processors to work 20 hours of overtime a month.
But the overtime ends on Sept. 30.
Since 2001, the government has trained, equipped and deployed more than 2.5 million men and women to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan. But those who came home with brain injuries, post-traumatic stress disorder or other serious afflictions have too often found that the military's efficiency ended abruptly when they filed a disability claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Veterans filing a new disability claim can wait a year or more to get an answer from the VA, potentially costing them thousands of dollars a month in disability payments, even as they get VA medical treatment.
The backlog of claims more than four months old stands at almost a half-million. The delays used to be even worse: Under relentless pressure from Congress, veterans groups and the news media, the VA finally started shrinking the claims backlog this year. But the lethargic department doesn't plan to clear it completely for at least two more years, and veterans will still have to wait up to four months for an answer on their claims. That's a pitiful, unambitious goal, and there's deep concern that the VA can't even meet it.
Things got this bad because no one at the VA apparently had the wit to look at the numbers and plan for the enormous wave of veterans that would be coming their way. The problem is bipartisan. It began to get serious on President George W. Bush's watch and got worse under President Obama. Most of the causes are obvious: Huge numbers of vets filing claims, an antiquated system that keeps most records on paper despite a long-promised effort to digitize them, and a maddening disconnect between the VA and the Pentagon over getting veterans' medical records.
Efforts to fix the problem haven't always fared well. In 1997, an average VA employee processed 135 claims a year, according to the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, but as of 2012 that had dropped to some 73 per year — even as the VA has hired thousands of new employees to handle the load.
The VA often explains the delays by noting that veterans' claims have become far more complicated, but the department has been making that same argument since at least 1994, when it told Congress the time to resolve claims had risen because of their "increasing complexity."
The department has done some things right. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki deserves great credit for initiatives such as making Vietnam War veterans eligible for benefits for medical problems stemming from Agent Orange and other causes. That made the backlog worse, but it was the correct thing to do.
And the department has worked hard lately to get the backlog under control, including requiring processors to work 20 hours of overtime a month. But the overtime ends on Sept. 30, which is one reason critics in Congress and veterans groups doubt the department will meet the goal of clearing the backlog by the end of 2015.
The debate over the problem too often seems sterile. Behind the numbers are men and women with real problems, many of them severe, whose best hope is help from the government that sent them to war.
Things got this bad because no one at the VA apparently had the wit to look at the numbers and plan for the enormous wave of veterans that would be coming their way
And what was the EXCUSE for the Obamacare website GLITCHES?
OH YEA The website failed due to the overload of hits. :wink:
Gee tens of millions of people are without insurance and millions more are getting letters telling them their coverage is cancel due to Obamacare and nobody in the Government figured out that there would be more than 5 visiting the website at a time. :roll: I guess no body in the Obama Administration had the wit to plan for the ENORMOUS WAVE of people looking to sign up for FREE HEALTHCARE. :wink:
Ask yourself if the VA can't plan and handle for 2.5 million returning vets who the hell believes the government can plan for and handle the healthcare for 300 million citizens plus the healthcare for the millions of ILLEGALS the Dems will be covering as soon as Obama stuffs his "amnesty for all" bill through the government at midnight on Christmas eve?
Oh BTW is anyone surprised that the Dem's talking heads are now blaming the Insurance Companies for Obama REPEATEDLY lying about "if you like your insurance you can keep your insurance Period". According to them it is the INSURANCE COMPANIES CANCELING POLICIES NOT OBAMA. :roll: I guess the fact those canceled policies that people LIKED not meeting the minimum requirements that OBAMA SET doesn't matter. :roll: Seems Obama knows better what every US citizen's family budget can cover even after they are cut back to part time due to their employer wanting to avoid the punishment for not covering their employees as it will bankrupt their business.
How can one man be so damn smart and still not know that the NSA is spying on innocent Americans and leaders of US Allies, that the IRS is targeting US citizens that don't happen to support his agenda , that the DOJ is arming foreign drug cartels with illegal American guns, that the DOS is disreguarding all warning signs of pending terrorist attacks and allowing US citizens to die INCLUDING AN AMBASSADOR, oh and let's not forget the DOJ lying to the courts to get search warrents to seize media files to intimidate the media into not reporting the TRUTH of what his corrupt administration is really up to. If Obama is half as smart as he would have everyone believe then why is it he finds out what is going on in his administration by the same means you and I do by MEDIA REPORTS? :? :roll:
I would have to say the fact you can keep your insurance is NOT the only thing that golf playing incompetent community organizing junior senator is lying about. :wink: