Lawmakers address problems with VA programs, again

Lawmakers address problems with VA programs, again
How many more heartaches will congress allow?
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
October 17, 2013

When you know what has been going on all along this report on another family grieving over another suicide saying they didn't know about what war can do, it will make you even more upset and this story, I pray to God, will cause you to demand answers from congress.

I've been tracking these reports, no matter how sad they are because it almost happened to my own veteran and it did happen to his nephew. Not because of Iraq, or Afghanistan, or even the Gulf War. It happened because both of them served in Vietnam. That's how long I have been tracking this killer. Suicides after military service are not new and that is the most troubling part of all. We ran out of excuses when congress started to "address" this.

Here is one of the first posts I put up on my older blog.

We had two wars going on but this happened.

Lawmakers address problems with VA programs
CHRIS ADAMS
Mercury News
Mar 03, 2006

WASHINGTON - Congressional leaders from both parties have begun pushing the Bush administration to boost staffing for its veterans' disability compensation program, now mired in a growing backlog of cases and beset by increasing delays.

At the same time, Democratic lawmakers are writing legislation to increase funding and enrollment in a pension program for poor veterans and their widows. In December, Knight Ridder revealed that the program was overlooking the vast majority of people who could participate - an estimated 2 million veterans or widows who collectively aren't getting as much as $22 billion a year.

"Many veterans and their survivors who are most in need of the pension program - our World War II and Korean-era veterans - have no idea that the program exists," said Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, which just finished a series of hearings on the Bush administration's 2007 budget proposal for the VA.

The VA's disability compensation program sends checks to 2.7 million veterans for injuries suffered during military service. Yet high error rates, lengthy appeals, backlogs and wide regional inconsistencies mean many veterans wait years for decisions. One result, detailed by Knight Ridder: Thousands of older veterans die with their claims still pending.

Although the Bush administration expects the backlog to continue rising, its 2007 budget proposal calls for decreasing the staff that directly handles such cases - 149 fewer workers, from the current year's 6,574.

The VA has long wanted to reduce its backlog to less than 250,000 claims. But the department's most recent projections have it rising to nearly 400,000 by the end of 2007.

In addition, the average time to process claims, which the VA had said would drop to 145 days, or 125 days, or even 100 days, is projected to increase this year and next, to more than 180 days.

Any idea what a delay in a claim approval does to a veteran?

This came out in 2007. Notice the numbers

Aug 15, 2007
Army Suicides Highest in 26 Years
By PAULINE JELINEK
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Army soldiers committed suicide last year at the highest rate in 26 years, and more than a quarter did so while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a new military report.

The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Thursday, found there were 99 confirmed suicides among active duty soldiers during 2006, up from 88 the previous year and the highest since the 102 suicides in 1991 at the time of the Persian Gulf War.

The suicide rate for the Army has fluctuated over the past 26 years, from last year's high of 17.3 per 100,000 to a low of 9.1 per 100,000 in 2001.

Last year, "Iraq was the most common deployment location for both (suicides) and attempts," the report said.

The 99 suicides included 28 soldiers deployed to the two wars and 71 who weren't. About twice as many women serving in Iraq and Afghanistan committed suicide as did women not sent to war, the report said.

Last year there were almost 500 when they counted National Guards and Reservists.

So why are we still reading stories like this with Congress pretending they are doing something about them?

Phoenix vet’s suicide put before Congress
Parents had no idea of his challenges
Tri-Valley Dispatch
By CHAD GARLAND, Cronkite News
October 16, 2013

WASHINGTON — Daniel Somers’ parents said they had “no idea” about the struggles their son was facing before the Phoenix Army veteran took his own life in June.

Now, Howard and Jean Somers are working to raise awareness about veterans’ mental health issues and to advocate for changes to the way the Department of Veterans Affairs handles benefits claims and mental-health treatments.

They brought their campaign last week to Washington, where the couple met with Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and took part Wednesday in a round-table discussion for House lawmakers hosted by Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, D-Flagstaff.

“His parents contacted me about his story and I was so moved by that that I want the rest of the (House Veterans’ Affairs) committee to hear that,” Kirkpatrick said.

She called suicide a “huge problem” for the military, citing an estimated 22 veteran suicides each day.

“We hope that this is the beginning of working toward a common-sense solution,” she said.

Jean Somers said she and her husband wanted to “put a face” on the issue of veterans’ mental health to show lawmakers how it affects veterans and their families.

“They look at it in terms of generalities,” she said. “This can make it real for everybody.”

Daniel Somers served on hundreds of combat missions as a Humvee turret gunner during his service in Iraq, experiences that left him “broken,” his mother said. He was dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injuries and what his father called “full-blown Gulf War syndrome.”

But Daniel was not only afflicted by health problems — Jean said that before he killed himself, her son, in a “very explicit letter … indicated there were innumerable deficiencies in the VA system.”
read more here

The latest report on veterans suicides is there are 22 a day that they know about so far. The latest from the VA on attempted suicides is 1,000 a month. 55 veterans a day find it so hard to be here back home they want to die. They did survive war though.