Principi: Eligibility explosion behind VA claims backlog

Principi: Eligibility explosion behind VA claims backlog
Pensacola News Journal
Written by
Tom Philpott
Military Update
July 6, 2013

Those criticizing the Department of Veteran Affairs for its enormous backlog of disability claims are ignoring how recent laws and politics have turned VA into something Lincoln never envisioned: A fount of billions of dollars in payments for ailments likely caused by aging rather than military service, says former VA Secretary Anthony J. Principi.

Principi’s push to restore “integrity” to the VA claims system began with a keynote address June 20 at a Washington D. C. forum on the VA. His speech, however, landed with a thud, ignored by other forum participants and even by its co-hosts, a group called Concerned Veterans for America and the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard.

The compensation claims backlog can’t be solved, Principi argued, until Congress, VA leaders and veteran service organizations acknowledge and address how recent laws and policy decisions vastly expanded disability pay eligibility. Unless a “rebalancing” of priorities occurs, the former VA chief warned, public confidence in the VA claims system is at risk.

He compared calls by politicians and pundits for current VA Secretary Eric Shinseki and key deputies to resign over the claims backlog to “relieving the lighthouse keeper because the fog is so thick no one can see the light.”

Ironically, Principi’s remarks were sandwiched between a half hour of fresh attacks on the VA from Republicans on the veterans affairs committees, and a panel of vet advocates who urged VA to work harder and smarter to process the rising river of claims. Overlooked was Principi’s assertion that disability pay eligibility today goes far beyond Lincoln’s charge: “To care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.”
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