VA Ignored Growing Disability Claims Backlog, Now Nearly 900,000

The following is part of the testimony Veterans For Common Sense gave at a hearing. When I've been told I'm wrong in the past, reporters tend to use whatever they are told and they do not want to do the work to find out what is real instead of what the person they are speaking to is telling them. In other words, totally different figures depending on what the person they are speaking to believes is the truth.
This clears up any confusion. The main point to focus on after addressing the fact that fraudulent claims with the VA are not a problem, is the fact there are nearly 900,000 cases they have yet to honor. Understand when you are reading what was produced by VCS, these are not just a bunch of numbers but a veteran and usually a family waiting to have wounds treated and incomes they can no longer earn replaced by this nation priding itself on the term, "grateful nation" but finds it oh so easy to just forget about them.

VA Confirmed PTSD Claim Fraud is Not a Problem

During 2005, as the number of PTSD claims filed by veterans continued to increase, VA leaders tasked VA’s Office of the Inspector General to review PTSD claims that were already approved. According to a VA statement issued in 2005:

The problems with these files appear to be administrative in nature, such as missing documents, and not fraud…. In the absence of evidence of fraud, we're not going to put our veterans through the anxiety of a widespread review of their [approved PTSD] disability claims…. Instead, we're going to improve our training for VA personnel who handle disability claims and toughen administrative oversight.

VA confirmed fraud is not a problem. Rather, poor documentation, poor training, and poor administrative oversight by VA were the actual culprits. VA could and should have instituted better documentation, better training, and better administrative oversight.

VA Ignored Growing Disability Claims Backlog, Now Nearly 900,000

VA missed their third opportunity to issue improved PTSD regulations when the claim backlog ballooned over the past few years. The disability claims backlog has soared, from just over 600,000 in January 2004 to nearly 900,000 in March 2009.

VA’s current claims backlog nightmare includes more than 60,000 pending claims from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans for any type of medical condition. To date, more than 370,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have filed a disability claim against VA for any type of condition, overwhelming evidence that the two current wars are creating a sustained and significant hardship on VA’s already broken claims system.

VA could and should have issued new regulations to expedite PTSD claims in order to break the bottleneck of 900,000 claims awaiting adjudication.