Potential VA benefits chief has new ideas

No I don't have ESP and I did not go to Harvard. I just pay attention and read about people like Linda Blimes thinking it would be a great idea to take care of the veterans by pushing their claims thru. Ironic as it is this showed up today on Army Times, but hey, anyone paying attention feels the same way.

Potential VA benefits chief has new ideas/

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Monday Feb 2, 2009 17:36:26 EST

A Harvard University researcher with some radical ideas about how to reduce the backlog of veterans disability claims appears to be in line to head the Veterans Benefits Administration.

Linda Blimes, a public policy lecturer and research at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, wants the Department of Veterans Affairs to operate like the Internal Revenue Service — on an honor system that trusts veterans claiming service-connected disabilities. All veterans claims would be approved as soon as they are filed, with a random audit conducted to “weed out and deter fraudulent claims,” Blimes told the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee in testimony in 2008.

Ninety percent of veterans disability claims end up being paid after they make it through the system, she said — proof, she said, that most veterans are asking only for what they deserve.

Immediate payment of at least a minimum benefit would help to reduce the average 180-day waiting time for initial benefits claims to be processed and allow VA to redeploy the employees processing those claims to work on more complicated appeals, she said.

Blimes also has talked of a vastly simplified disability rating system that would have just four ratings instead of the current 10 for service-connected disabilities and illnesses.

Blimes has not been formally announced as a nominee, but her name is being circulated among lawmakers and congressional staff in what has become a standard procedure to determine whether there is any strong opposition to her taking the key post.

Her idea of a streamlined claims process has some prominent supporters, among them Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans Affairs Committee chairman who has talked of automatic claims approval as a way to quickly eliminate the claims backlog.