New VA Controversy over Sleep Apnea

Attorney urges Congress to end sleep apnea claims 'abuse'
By Tom Philpott
Stars and Stripes
Published: May 30, 2013

In 2001, the year U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan, 983 veterans began to draw disability compensation from the Department of Veterans Affairs for sleep apnea, a disorder linked to obesity and characterized by pauses in breathing during sleep that can cause chronic drowsiness.

Last year, 25 times that number of veterans and military retirees (24,791) were added to VA compensation rolls for service-connected sleep apnea, raising the number of vets and retirees drawing apnea payments to 114,103, double the number VA reported just three years earlier.

VA compensation for sleep apnea now exceeds $1.2 billion annually under the most conservative of calculations. Michael T. Webster, a former naval aviator and family law attorney in Shalimar, Fla., calls this boom a scam and an offense to veterans who suffer from “real disabilities.”

Webster seeks to shine a spotlight on what he sees as “widespread abuse” of the VA claims system, mostly by recent retirees. He began with a May 6 letter to his congressman, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.), who is chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.

“Virtually every single family law case which I have handled involving military members during the past three years has had the military retiree receiving a VA ‘disability’ based upon sleep apnea,” Webster wrote. “A recently retired colonel told me that military members approaching retirement are actually briefed that if they claim VA disability based on sleep apnea, then they receive an automatic 50 percent disability rating thereby qualifying for ‘concurrent’ payment status.”
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