Another bill to improve Veterans Affairs benefit claim process

In June of 2008 we heard promises of fixing the claims backlog when there were 879,291 claims waiting to be honored. Way back then, thousands of veterans had died waiting.

Report: 8,763 vets died waiting for benefits
Army Times
By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Jul 15, 2008 14:56:15 EDT

The title of the House committee report sums up what happened: “Die or Give Up Trying: How Poor Contractor Performance, Government Mismanagement and the Erosion of Quality Controls Denied Thousands of Disabled Veterans Timely and Accurate Retroactive Retired Pay Awards.”

The report by the majority staff of the House Oversight and Government Reform domestic policy panel, released Tuesday, concluded that at least 28,283 disabled retirees were denied retroactive pay awards because rushed efforts to clear a huge backlog of claims led program administrators to stop doing quality assurance checks on the claims decisions.

And of the original 133,057 potentially eligible veterans, 8,763 died before their cases could be reviewed for retroactive payments, according to the report.

At issue are the Concurrent Retirement and Disability Payments and Combat-Related Special Compensation programs, approved by Congress in 2003 and 2004 to allow large numbers of disabled retirees to receive full concurrent military retirement pay and veteran’s disability compensation.

In February, the backlog was said to be “more than 39,000” cases. Jonas said she had been assured that the backlog would be cleared by April.

That did not happen, according to the subcommittee report, because Lockheed Martin, the contractor hired in July 2006 to compute the complex retroactive pay awards, had difficulty making the computations fast enough to eliminate the backlog quickly. The complexity of the computations also hindered Lockheed Martin’s ability to develop software to automate the process. read more here

So why is there yet one more politician introducing yet one more bill to fix what has been broken all this time but forgetting it wasn't fixed before? The likelihood of a bill being written the right way once and for all is slim until they figure out what they already got wrong.

Rep. Dan Maffei introduces bill to improve Veterans Affairs benefit claim process
Robert Harding
March 27, 2014

U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei is seeking to improve the Veterans Affairs benefit claims process for families of deceased veterans.

Maffei, D-Syracuse, introduced a bill Thursday, the Veteran Families Fairness Act, to assist veterans' families and ensure the veteran's benefits aren't lost.

Right now, a veteran's parents, spouse and children under 18 years old are considered eligible survivors who would receive benefits from the VA if the veteran passes away during the claims process. But there have been cases of veterans who die without a spouse, living parents or children under 18. In those cases, the veteran's benefits are lost, Maffei said.

For eligible survivors, there are challenges. In order to receive the deceased veteran's benefits, they must start from the beginning of the claims process, even if the veteran had already gone through the process and was waiting to receive benefits.

According to figures from the VA cited by Maffei, approximately 22,000 veterans died with a pending claim in the 2013 fiscal year. Some veterans died while waiting up to three years in the VA claims process and yet, their family members were unable to receive benefits because they weren't considered eligible survivors.

Maffei said his legislation will help address these flaws in the VA claims process.
read more here