Twisted VA Disability System Due For Change

The only thing that is for sure is that unless members of congress actually do something to fix the problems, they will just keep happening. The House of Representatives First Veterans Affairs Committee was in 1946. Think they've had long enough to get the job done for the sake of our veterans?

Disability system for veterans strays far from its official purpose
Los Angeles Times (MCT)
By Alan Zarembo
Published: November 16, 2014

The room fell silent for seven minutes as Illinois Rep. Tammy Duckworth upbraided a government contractor.

"Shame on you," the congresswoman scolded Braulio Castillo at an oversight hearing in Washington, D.C., last year, accusing the business owner of gaming the veterans disability system.

Castillo had filed a claim with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs after learning that a disability rating would give his technology company preferential standing for federal contracts.

His disability: A foot injury suffered playing football at the U.S. Military Preparatory Academy in 1984.

Though the injury didn't prevent him from going on to play quarterback at the University of San Diego, the VA rated him 30% disabled — good for $450 a month, tax-free.

Duckworth, an Army veteran who lost both legs in Iraq in 2004 when her helicopter was shot down, noted that her severely damaged right arm was rated only 20%.

"You, who never picked up a weapon in defense of this great nation, very cynically took advantage of the system," she said. "You broke the faith with this nation."

Duckworth directed her ire at Castillo, but the real culprit was the broad eligibility criteria of the disability system itself. The contractor had played by the rules for benefits and, as many Washington lawmakers know, those benefits cover ailments from sports injuries to bullet wounds, resulting in disability payouts that totaled $58 billion this fiscal year — up from $49 billion last year.
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