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Friday, April 12, 2013

Congress complaining about the VA is not new news

I was reading "Watchdog: Skeptical House panel quizzes VA head on budget" on Washington Examiner written by Mark Flatten when this part jumped out at me.
"I'm concerned that we're not really seeing the results for the money Congress has provided to VA over the last years," Miller said. "VA has missed its own performance goal every single year and I think most committee members here are really very tired of the excuses that we keep hearing."

Toward the bottom there was this.
In 2009, it took an average of 161 days to rate a disability claim. Today, it takes about 286 days, according to the VA's most recent figures.


Considering the Congress has not even passed a budget in years, they are really in no position to complain that much.

This is from THE WARRIOR SAW, SUICIDES AFTER WAR, my new book being published on Amazon appropriately enough, on April 15, tax day. Notice what was happening and then notice the date.
Senator Obama went on to say, "When we learn that the VA health care budget is more than $1 billion short, we shouldn't tell our veterans that there isn't a crisis, we should tell them that we will do what it takes to make sure that they get the health care services they earned" said Obama. "That is why I once again am joining my colleagues in an effort to provide the VA with the funding it needs to fully meet the health needs of our veterans. Senator Murray's emergency supplemental funding bill is necessary to avoid what is clearly an on-coming crisis in the VA health system." (Obama Says $1 Billion Shortfall in VA Health Care Budget Requires Emergency Funding By: Barack Obama II Date: June 28, 2005 Location: Washington, DC)

This does not even address the fact Vietnam veterans are over 40% of the backlog of claims now because no one paid attention to them before when they had their claims turned down. Does not address how two wars were started but Congress didn't seem to care they had not planned for the wounded by body or mind.

Am I happy about what is going on? Absolutely not! But I haven't been happy about any of this for a very, very long time.

UPDATE
I knew something didn't seem right on the article from "Watchdog" so I searched my achieves.
VA Claim backlog hit 915,000 on May 4, 2009
Crisis at the VA as Benefits Claims Backlog Nearly Tops One Million
Monday, 01 June 2009
By Jason Leopold

During the past four months, the Department of Veterans Affairs backlog of unfinished disability claims from grew by more than 100,000, adding to an already mountainous backlog that is now close to topping one million.

The VA's claims backlog, which includes all benefits claims and all appeals at the Veterans Benefits Administration and the Board of Veterans Appeals at VA, was 803,000 on Jan. 5, 2009. The backlog hit 915,000 on May 4, 2009, a staggering 14 percent increase in four months.

The issue has become so dire that veterans now wait an average of six months to receive disability benefits and as long as four years for their appeals to be heard in cases where their benefits were denied.

Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said during a hearing in March that the VA is “almost criminally behind in processing claims.”
This was on Morning Joe and you need to hear what they are claiming now as if any of this is new!
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