Would you wait 4 years for Workman's Comp? Why should veterans?

If you get hurt on the job, you get Workman's Comp and can pay most of your bills. If you happen to work for Uncle Sam in the military, get wounded on your job, you get discharged, sent home but no money to pay your bills. Disabled veterans should not be second class citizens. Isn't that what we're talking about here?

"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, is directly proportional to how they perceive the veterans of earlier wars were treated and appreciated"
-- George Washington

The news has been bleak for active duty military folks with suicides going up just as the reports of 18 veterans a day commit suicide, but the truth is, they are not all counted. Once they are discharged the DOD does not track them. Until they are in the VA system, they are not counted by the VA. How many more are committing suicide without anyone counting them? How many commit suicide because they cannot live with the extra stress of being wounded serving their country then having the country deny any responsibility?

VCS / VUFT Lawsuit in San Francisco Chronicle
Written by Bob Egelko
Wednesday, 24 August 2011 09:01

VA appeals ruling on veterans' health care

August 24, 2011, San Francisco, California (San Francisco Chronicle) - The Obama administration is challenging a court ruling that would open the door to changes in a veterans' health care system beset by long delays and a high suicide rate.

The ruling by the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco would allow veterans' groups to go to court to seek an overhaul of the Department of Veterans Affairs' procedures and timetables to speed health care to veterans.

The appellate judges "ignored basic limits on judicial authority," Justice Department lawyers said in a new appeal to the court.

They said the ruling violated Congress' decision "to prevent the courts from second-guessing the VA's performance of these critical functions."

The administration requested a new hearing before a larger appellate panel.

The court's 2-1 ruling in May followed a 2008 trial in San Francisco that revealed a health care system plagued by delays and gaps in care, particularly for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with severe mental trauma.

The average waiting time for health benefit claims was 4.4 years, and more than 1,400 veterans who had been denied coverage died in one six-month period while their appeals were pending, the court said.
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