White River Junction:Peake answers questions at town hall

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In Vermont, new VA chief hears complaints from veterans

By John Curran
Associated Press Writer / June 23, 2008
WHITE RIVER JUNCTION, Vt.—Some had beefs about their medical care. Some came to say how great their doctors and nurses were.

Some wanted an answer about a claim, or to find out what Uncle Sam was doing for homeless veterans. One wanted to know where his military records were.

U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake got an earful Monday as about 250 people -- aging veterans, spouses, VA employees -- turned out for the second of two Town Hall-style meetings organized by U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. About 175 turned out for an earlier one in South Burlington.

Peake, a West Point graduate and former military surgeon who took the job six months ago, opened the 90-minute meeting at the White River Junction VA Medical Center by telling those gathered for the meeting that his priorities are making the soldier-to-civilian transition a smoother one.

The VA, which employs about 250,000 people and has an annual budget of $80 billion, must improve its "outmoded" system of processing claims and go to a paperless system, he said.

When he opened the room up for a question-and-answer session, no one was shy about calling him on the carpet.

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You have to give Peake some credit because he is trying a lot harder than Nicholson ever did.

Peake's answer to disabled veterans is to wait and pray

Mikolajcik urged Peake to grant all veterans with the disease, also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a service-connected disability. Currently only Gulf War veterans are covered, Mikolajcik said. "My comrades in arms don't get the same benefits, and it's not fair," he said.

For unknown reasons, veterans have a 60 percent higher chance of developing ALS.

The retired general described the meeting as "very personable." "Now we just wait and pray," he said.

Apr. 30: New Outrage, as VA Secretary Peake Tells Veteran Sick with ALS to Wait and Pray

Jill Coley


The Post and Courier (Charleston, South Carolina)

Apr 30, 2008
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/ArticleID/9974

As I read this I had to read it twice. I thought maybe I took nap time early at my desk instead of on my bed. There are times when I read way too much and my eyes grow tired to the point where I'll skip a work here and there totally changing the meaning of what I'm reading. My brain could not tolerate what I read the first time. I thought perhaps I misread this and it said Peake is praying veterans don't have to wait anymore leading into a report that he is pressing congress and the Bush to make sure every veteran of this nation is treated with the utmost respect and the honor they all deserve for having served this nation. Alas, no. Then I thought a man in his position could not be so callous, so removed from the suffering of the veterans, so inept to deal with the crisis Nicholson left behind that he would actually answer all of this with "wait and pray" instead of solutions. The wait will be resolved in the next election provided it is not McCain taking over Bush's seat and appointing yet another pal of the faithful instead of the most competent person they could find. We all know what McCain's attitude and track record on veterans issue is and it's equal to if not worse than Bush's performance. Maybe what Peake is suggesting they pray about is that they survived the greatest threat to their lives at a time when we lose more when they come home from combat than we do during it.

Sec. Defense Gates not happy with VA

Gates: Improvements to VA care ‘uneven’
By Lisa BurgessStars and Stripes
ARLINGTON, Va. — Improvements to the veteran’s health care system aren’t always making it from policy writers’ pens to the clinics and hospitals where they’re needed, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday.

“My impression is, it’s still uneven, in terms of implementation at the local level,” Gates told Pentagon reporters after a lunch meeting with Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake and other military health care officials.

Gates said the Pentagon and the VA are working to adopt 400 recommendations collected from numerous task forces and study groups that will streamline and simplify the veteran’s health care system.

But “it’s one thing to get the procedures and the policies fixed here in Washington,” Gates said. “It’s another thing to get it implemented right down to the local level, so that the individual soldier, sailor, airman or Marine is seeing the impact of this on the ground.”

go here for more
http://www.vawatchdog.org/08/nf08/nfAPR08/nf041608-1.htm

Things have not changed much in over a year

VA Facilities Provide Good Medical Treatment, But Vets Face Long Claims Backlog
DALE CITY, Va., Jan. 11, 2007
(CBS) Sean Lewis lost his right leg to a mortar shell in Iraq. But as CBS News correspondent Wyatt Andrews reports, he proudly shows off his state-of-the-art prosthetic. Lewis has nothing but praise for how his injury was treated, both by the Army and the Veterans Administration. But the way the VA handled his claim for disability is a much different story.

"Probably the worst thing in the world," Lewis says of the way his claim was handled. "On the medical side, you can't rave enough about it. On the benefit side, you don't have anything but complaints."

Lewis is upset because eight months after his discharge from the Army, the VA still hasn't determined his final disability rating. That delay has given him $1,000 a month less than he was owed and given him trouble with the mortgage. He adds that he has "problems with bills, stress in the relationship because you are having problems with the money." When Lewis left Walter Reed Hospital, his disability records were supposed to be transferred immediately. Instead, he says, the VA lost his files, a charge the VA denies.

"I didn't expect eight months of people having me chase my own tail around in circles," Lewis says. According to the nation's top veterans organizations, Lewis' long wait to get what he's owed is typical. In a report on the needs of young veterans, the groups said the VA benefits system suffered from "inadequate funding" and "insufficient manpower."

The problem, everyone agrees, is the overwhelming numbers. Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have already filed 176,000 new disability claims, but have run into a VA backlog of more than 400,000 cases. VA officials say reducing this backlog is their top priority. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/11/eveningnews/main2352706.shtml

New idea offered for easing VA claims backlog


By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 19:36:07 EDT

With the veterans’ disability claims system sagging under the weight of a growing backlog, partly caused by new claims from Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, a Harvard University professor recommends a radical overhaul that would automatically pay disability compensation to any war veteran who applies.

Linda Bilmes of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, who has been studying veterans’ medical care and disability benefits, said the current backlog of about 600,000 claims has overwhelmed a system that already was too slow and that things are only going to get worse. She predicts 250,000 to 400,000 claims will be filed over the next two years by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, creating a situation that she said “will rapidly turn the disability claims problem into a crisis.”

Her solution, which she discussed at a Tuesday congressional hearing, is that the VA “should accept and pay all disability claims” filed by Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, accepting at “face value” a veteran’s statement that he or she has a service-connected disability. Since 88 percent of disability claims are approved anyway, Bilmes said that some spot-checking and audits would be enough to ensure the system is fair.

Bilmes said it takes two or three years to hire and train claims processors, providing little comfort to veterans who are looking for financial aid now, which is why she has more radical ideas.

Ronald Aument, the VA’s deputy under secretary for benefits, said it takes an average of four months to process a disability claim under the best of circumstances, and that priority is being given to processing claims for the most severely disabled combat veterans who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. The average processing time is 177 days, and the VA has a goal of cutting that to about 145 days, he said.

Aument said the VA handled 774,000 claims last year but received 806,382, which is why gaining ground is difficult. The number of veterans receiving disability claims has climbed from about 2.3 million in 2000 to 2.7 million in 2006, he said.

The claims backlog, along with other problems in medical care in the military and VA, are having a lasting effect on new veterans’ attitudes toward their government.

Brady Van Engelen, a wounded Iraq war veteran, said veterans and their families are suffering. “We may end up with an entire generation of veterans who have no faith in our VA because those running it — as well as those overseeing it — were unable to hold up their end of the bargain,” he said.

“We did not prepare for this, and it is painfully evident,” said Van Engelen. “My generation is going to have to pay for this, and we will be paying for years and years.”



http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/03/tnsvaclaims070313/

Growing Claims Backlog Frustrates Veterans

From battling the enemy oversees to battling the system back home; it's a frustration all too familiar to American war veterans.

Now a KFOX investigation reveals how a growing backlog of disability compensation claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs has left many veterans waiting years for benefits they expected and needed much sooner.

One of those waiting is Army National Guard veteran Jimmie Brand. After a tour of duty in Iraq during the first Gulf War, doctors diagnosed him with a number of ailments including a separated disc in his back, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Brand said the problems are a result of his service, but he's been fighting the VA for ten years for benefits. He said he's waited three years for the VA to arrange a doctor's exam that he needs for his claim to be processed. He describes the anxiety caused by the delay as "a nightmare."

VA workload reports for early February 2007 show that more than 600,000 disability compensation claims are waiting to be answered. In the VA office that handles El Paso claims, more than 21 percent of the 24,000 claims have been pending for at least six months.

In New Mexico, 28 percent of the 4,700 claims are also still pending after six months.

Veterans' advocates say the backlog means veterans must wait to get money and medical care owed to them that many desperately need. They blame staff shortages at the VA, the aging population of America's veterans, and the influx of claims from troops injured in the Iraq war.

The National Service Director for Disabled American Veterans, Randy Reese, says older veterans are often waiting the longest.

"The average age of those veterans is way up there, and there's a lot of them who are dying while they're waiting for the adjudication of their claims," he said.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson tells KFOX there's a bigger backlog because there’s been a substantial increase in the number of claims applications.

He says the VA is hiring more claims processors and improving their training.

"We're expanding," he says, "but we can't do it overnight."

Secretary Nicholson expects a reduction in the claims backlog by the end of next year, but Jimmy Brand is hoping he'll get an answer much sooner. "I just want them to make a fair decision." he says.

If you're a veteran struggling to get a claim answered, veterans service organizations like Disabled American Veterans, VFW, and American Legion will provide a representative to advocate on your behalf to the VA.

It's a free service, but you may have to sign a power of attorney allowing the representative to obtain your records. You'll need to have your DD-214 form and relevant medical records. Letters of support, referred to as "buddy letters," from witnesses to your injury and its aftermath are also helpful.

DAV spokesman Tim Wilborn says, "No one wants to negotiate the bureaucracy of the VA alone."
http://www.kfoxtv.com/news//11036515/detail.html

$728 veteran alone at 50%

http://www.vba.va.gov/BLN/21/rates/comp01.htm

That is what it would cost per month to approve a claim at 50% today and get rid of the backlog of claims. The odds of getting 50% and having it pro-rated are a lot greater than having a claim approved at 100%. They usually have to fight for the additional rating. So let's just cut the bullshit out and state it point blank.

As you can see from the above the backlog is not getting better. As a matter of fact, there was a report that the backlog was over 800,000. This was in a report about the IT departments cutting back staffing.

VA claim backlog at 816,211 but IT cut back? WTF
Vets' groups urge IT budget boost for benefits processing
By Bob Brewin bbrewin@govexec.com February 13, 2008 Veterans' services organizations have urged Congress to provide a sharp increase in the information technology budget of the agency that handles their compensation and pension claims.

The fiscal 2009 IT budget request for the Veterans Benefits Administration is about 18 percent less than the fiscal 2008 proposal. The overall IT budget for the Veterans Affairs Department, VBA's parent agency, jumped 18 percent in President Bush's latest request.VBA's pending compensation and claims backlog stood at 816,211 as of January 2008, up 188,781 since 2004, said Kerry Baker, associate legislative director of the Disabled Veterans of America, during a Wednesday hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.

So here's the plan

1. Approve every claim today at 50% for a single veteran. That $728 a month will help the avoid becoming homeless. Most claims are eventually approved and very few are found to be fraudulent.

• Then take the claims and put them through the process to make sure there are no fraudulent claims mixed in.
• Take the date the claim was filed and use that to pay back retroactive payments according to what the claim merits. If it's higher than 50%, then pay the difference back to the veteran.
• When a claim is approved, then calculate in the funds that should have been paid for the spouse and the children they have.
• If a claim runs out of appeals and it is found to be a fraudulent claim then either charge them with a crime that can be proven in court, or drop it.

2. Hire claims processors and mental health staff to address the need already here

• Audit claims to see how many have been approved that need further information.
• Use new processors to collect the missing information and use the experienced processors to deal with the new claims efficiently.
• Begin training new processors for the long term in order to be able to deal with the new claims coming in for the long term. As we've already seen, older veterans end up seeking VA care when no one expects them.
  
  
  

These steps will help the veterans financially today and take some of their extra stress off of them. But this is not all that has to be done.

Veterans Centers

There are empty commercial buildings all across America. Select one in every city and put in a center staffed by veterans as paid employees for those who are still able to work and allow disabled veterans to act as volunteers when they cannot work a regular job. Even a veteran in a wheel chair still has his mind to help other veterans. Each one can contribute in one way or another. Opening Veteran's Center will take some of the load out of the VA hospitals when they do not need medical attention. Veteran's Centers are also a lot more appealing to veterans who have become distrustful of the government.

Support groups

Establish support groups in VA hospitals and Veteran's Centers to assist the veterans needing them. Some do not do well in a support group and will not participate. Support groups have been used in all walks of life and have proven to be beneficial. Make sure the family members are also provided with the opportunity to have their own support group because they are on the front line taking care of the veteran. Support groups for families will also reduce the isolation they feel and in turn reduce the divorce rate.

They can talk all they want about what they are doing, which will take years to show up when the need is great today. I don't blame Gates one bit. Do you? My plan is not perfect but it comes from doing this for a lot longer than I should have had to do this. 25 years working on this and living with it has given me some details the "exerts" have no clue is needed now.

Chaplain Kathie Costos
Namguardianangel@aol.com
http://www.namguardianangel.org/
http://www.namguardianangel.blogspot.com/
http://www.woundedtimes.blogspot.com/
"The willingness with which our young people are likely to serve in any war, no matter how justified, shall be directly proportional to how they perceive veterans of early wars were treated and appreciated by our nation." - George Washington

Senate committee approves Peake to lead VA

Senate committee approves Peake to lead VA

By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday Dec 13, 2007 19:35:53 EST

The Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee unanimously approved the nomination of retired Lt. Gen. James Peake to be the next secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday, and the full Senate could approve the appointment by the end of the day.

Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the committee chairman, said the only serious questions about Peake, a former Army surgeon general who spent 39 years on active duty, involved his post-service employment by a company that held contracts to provide medical examinations and other services to VA.
go here for the rest
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/12/military_peake_071213/

I wish him luck. He can't be half as bad as Nicholson was at it. At least, I pray to God he isn't!

Profiteering on the wounds of veterans

Corporate profiteering against Iraq vets?
Bush's nominee to head the Department of Veterans Affairs is the second to come from a private company that rakes in millions from VA contracts.

By Mark Benjamin

Nov. 20, 2007 WASHINGTON -- President Bush late last month nominated retired Lt. Gen. James Peake to be the next secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. It is not an inconsequential wartime post: The department is the second-largest government agency after the Defense Department. And the VA faces the awesome responsibility of caring for several generations of veterans, including the crush of American service members back from Iraq and Afghanistan.

On paper, Peake seems qualified. Wounded twice in Vietnam, he retired in 2004 from his post as Army surgeon general, the Army's top medical officer, with 40 years of experience in the field of military medicine.

But Bush plucked Peake directly from a private company that has raked in hundreds of millions of dollars from contracts with the VA -- and Peake himself helped develop proposals for the company to contract with the VA. That has raised questions about conflict of interest, potentially pitting veterans' care against corporate profits. Moreover, if he is confirmed, Peake will be the second head of the VA under the Bush administration to come from that same private contractor, QTC Management Inc.

Observers say QTC Management has performed high-quality work, and its former president, who also headed the VA under Bush, withstood past scrutiny by congressional investigators. But ever since Dick Cheney left Halliburton to become vice president, Bush administration critics have sounded the alarm about war profiteering seeping into the heart of the U.S. government. The changing leadership at the VA represents a little-known turn of the revolving door between contractors and the Bush administration. Veterans' advocates also worry that Peake's nomination suggests the White House may be interested in privatizing veterans' healthcare to an unhealthy degree.

The Veterans Affairs Department runs more than a thousand hospitals and outpatient clinics to care for veterans, including the influx of hundreds of thousands of veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan and are now out of the military and want to see a VA doctor.

Those veterans also seek disability checks as remuneration for their service-related ills. Every year the VA hands out over $40 billion in checks to veterans as compensation for everything from missing limbs to post-traumatic stress disorder.
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Also from Army Times
VA nominee Peake’s hearing set for Dec. 5
By Rick Maze - Staff writerPosted : Tuesday Nov 20, 2007 5:52:55 EST

The Bush administration’s nominee to be the next secretary of veterans’ affairs will appear before a Senate committee Dec. 5 to answer questions about what he will bring to the job if confirmed.
This could be a quick process if retired Lt. Gen. James Peake, a West Point graduate and former Army surgeon general, satisfies the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee that he is prepared to take on the many challenges facing the Department of Veterans Affairs, including a growing backlog of benefits claims, lengthy waits for some appointments and treatment of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, especially for mental health issues.
But Senate aides, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said Peake’s nomination could easily become a prolonged fight if his answers are unsatisfying or if his nomination somehow gets tied up in a partisan feud that has delayed action on legislation to improve veterans’ benefits and health care.
The Senate committee, chaired by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, has been complaining that leaving the VA secretary’s post vacant since Oct. 1 seems to indicate the Bush administration considers veterans’ issues to be unimportant.
The White House formally nominated Peake for the VA post on Thursday, just as Congress was beginning a previously scheduled two-week break. The Dec. 5 hearing will come on the first week back from the break. Congressional leaders hoping to end the legislative session no later than Dec. 21, which does not allow a lot of time for extensive hearings or investigation.
go here for the rest of this
http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/11/military_peake_nomination_071119w/