Vietnam Veterans Waiting Longer

Vietnam Veterans Waiting Longer
Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 3, 2014

Vietnam veterans have been waiting longer but if you read news reports it is almost as if they have all died off. Not taking anything away from WWII (3% of claims and backlog) and Korean War veterans (4% of claims and backlog) the largest percentage of claims involves Vietnam veterans.

This is how this news report should have ended, but it didn't.

There are 3.9 million Veterans of all eras who are currently in receipt of disability benefits from VA.

VA Pending Claims according to VA Monday Morning Report of Feb. 1 is 675,891.

36% of those claims are from Vietnam Veterans. 22% of those claims are from Gulf War Veterans.

The Backlog of claims over 125 days is 397,122.

37% of those claims are from Vietnam Veterans. 22% of those claims are from Gulf War Veterans.

60% of pending claims are supplemental, 40% are original.
77% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are receiving some level of monetary benefit from VA.
11% of Veterans filing supplemental claims already have a 100% disability rating (receive $2800 or more per month) or qualify for Individual Unemployability (compensated at the 100% disabled rate).
40% of Veterans filing supplemental claims are already rated at 50% disability or higher.
43% of supplemental claims are from Vietnam-era Veterans; 19% are from Veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts.

It didn't tell you that most of the claims are from Vietnam veterans waiting longer for what they paid for. It didn't tell you that while there are 21,978,000 veterans in this country, the VA is only dealing with 3.9 million veteran claims. The rest are waiting and watching to see if the promise to care for those who served is honored or not. Some of them know they should be treated by the VA, others are in denial, others don't want to bother and some need nothing at all.

Bill Briggs interviewed IAVA director but not once was it mentioned those numbers were predominately from veterans waiting longer than Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.

Now that you know the rest of the story, read what Briggs wanted to tell you.

VA backlog again gnarled in red tape, report finds
NBC News
By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor
February 3, 2014

The Department of Veterans Affairs' promise to end by 2015 its massive, benefits backlog for disabled veterans has "stalled," according to an analysis released Monday by a leading veterans' organization.

After slicing its glut of pending claims from a peak of 600,000 cases in March 2013 to 400,000 in November, the VA has been unable to budge below that threshold this year, according to "The Red Tape Report," authored by the group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

Consequently, hundreds of thousands of veterans who were permanently disabled or made ill by their military service are waiting months for their compensation checks to arrive to help pay bills and, in some cases, to buy food. Some of those veterans are physically unable to hold jobs.

“In the State of the Union address, President (Barack) Obama re-affirmed the VA disability claims backlog as a national priority,” said Jacqueline Maffucci, IAVA's research director and author of the report. “... It is not just about bringing the backlog to zero, but keeping it there."
read more here

These are the veterans reporters are no longer interested in even though they are still waiting.