Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits

[American_Jihad]

Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits


March 12, 2013
By Daniel Greenfield

Obama Inc’s standard policy seems to be screwing veterans. Between the cuts to veteran health care via Tricare, education funding and mass firing of military personnel while handing out billions of dollars to his backers, Obama has inflicted catastrophic damage on countless military families.

But Obama’s worst impact may have been on the most vulnerable veterans.

...

This is an outrage, but unfortunately the Obama Disaster extends across the entire Federal Government. The new IT systems never work the way that they are supposed to. The consultants cash in and the people are told to get lost.

If only Obama had devoted as much care and effort to working on an information management system for veterans as he did for his campaign. But the Chief Executive of the Eternal Campaign of Obama Inc. has his priorities.

Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits

 

[S.J.]

I'm sure you are only partially right. Like all of Obama's policies, black veterans will go to the front of the line. But that will only be temporary. Eventually, they will suffer alongside everyone else.

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right Obama - what about dat?...

Veterans' wait time for benefits is 'too long,' VA official concedes
March 13th, 2013 - Questioned about a growing backlog of veterans' claims, a top Veteran Affairs official conceded Wednesday that veterans wait "too long" to receive benefits.

"Too many veterans still have to wait too long to get the compensation benefits they earn, and that is unacceptable to us," said Allison Hickey, Undersecretary for Benefits, during a hearing on Capitol Hill. Senators pressed officials from the VA on the increase in the number of veterans waiting more than 125 days for their benefits claims to go through. A recent report from the Center for Investigative Reporting found that since President Obama took office in 2009, the number of veterans waiting more than a year for their benefits has skyrocketed, from 11,000 in 2009 to 245,000 in December 2012, a jump of more than 2,000%.

The VA states the average wait time after a veteran files a claim is 273 days. But for veterans filing their first claim, including Iraq and Afghanistan vets, the wait is up to 327 days, nearly two months longer. In big cities such as New York, veterans could wait for almost two years. CIR analyzed the data obtained from a Freedom of Information Act request. "When I look at the numbers four years later ... it's not getting better," Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) stated during the hearing. "I can tell you that the increase in calls in my office are not going down."

Hickey cited an increase in demand because of the length of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a decision to expand benefits to those suffering from illnesses associated with Agent Orange exposure during the Vietnam War. "What I will say is the demand has risen, and I will go back to saying we have done a million claims a year," Hickey said. "These hardworking folks want to do what's right for their family members." The number of claims has increased. In 2001, the VA completed approximately 480,000 claims, in 2002 approximately 796,000 claims and in 2003 around 827,000 claims, according to Vermont Sen. Bernard Sanders, chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee. In 2010, 2011 and 2012, the VA completed more than 1 million claims each year, he said.

Veterans service organizations say filing a claim can be as challenging as filing a complex tax return or defending yourself in a lawsuit. In the meantime, veterans experience hardships. "Our veterans go through a lot of the same everyday trials and challenges that everyone else does. They have bills to pay. They have mortgages. They have car loans. Many of them are going back to school, and on top of that they have their service-connected disabilities," said Jay Agg, spokesman for the veterans service group AMVETS. "So having to wait months, years for their benefits to which they're entitled is very frustrating, and it's just compounded when they have to deal with all these other challenges."

Source

 

[waltky]

Rep. Jeff Miller throws down the gauntlet...

Congressman calls on top VA official to resign over benefits backlog
March 20, 2013 WASHINGTON — Lawmakers frustrated over worsening waits by veterans for overdue benefits claims have begun targeting Veterans Affairs workers and leaders, saying someone needs to be held accountable.

On Wednesday, House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller, R-Fla., called for the department’s top benefits administrator, Undersecretary Allison Hickey, to step down over the lack of the improvement in the claims backlog. Last week, the top Republican on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee threatened to cut off funding to the department’s headquarters staff unless improvements are made. Lawmakers from both committees questioned whether any underperforming employees have been reprimanded or fired for the continued failure of the system. “There are many people losing patience as we continue to hear the same excuses from VA about increased workload and increased complexity of claims,” Miller said at a hearing Wednesday. “Without better workload or surge capacity planning, I fear that VA is simply one national mission away from complete collapse and utter failure.”

Rep. Jeff Miller, R-Fla., speaks at the 2012 Warrior-Family Symposium in Washington, DC on Sept. 13, 2012.

Nearly 900,000 veterans compensation and disability claims are currently pending with the department, and about 630,000 of those have been in the system for more than four months. That backlog has steadily worsened over the last few years, despite VA promises last summer that the numbers would improve by now and the department’s stated goal of erasing the overdue claims in 2015. The department processed more than 1 million veterans claims each of the last three years, but still saw the number of overdue files increase. Hickey, who did not directly respond to Miller’s calls for her resignation, told both committees that the department has turned a corner on the backlog, and expects to see progress over the next two years.

She credited new processing technology and techniques, better electronic records sharing, and increased training and staffing to handle the problem. “We have achieved momentum with our transformation plan that will improve how veterans’ benefits are delivered for generations to come, and 2013 is the year of full deployment and change,” she told lawmakers. But lawmakers and veterans groups questioned that. Officials from the VFW — who defended Hickey and dismissed calls for her resignation — said they doubt 2015 is a realistic time line to eliminate the backlog. Leaders from Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America called for a presidential commission on the issue, an idea several members of Congress have backed.

VA officials said they have worked closely with veterans service organizations to plot out fixes. New rules which allow those groups to submit “fully developed” claims on behalf of veterans are designed to help dramatically reduce the wait times and simplify the process. Still, even supporters of the department’s changes expressed frustration over the pace of progress. Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., said he supports the VA’s current path but “we’ve got to get it done already. Sometime in the next few months, we need to break this thing.” Hickey said she understood the skepticism, but said she is confident that the department can reach that 2015 goal.

Source

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Mebbe dey need to get the Too Big to Fail treatment - like the banks...

Feds can't keep up with ills from two wars, scientists say
March 27, 2013 - The federal government is failing to keep pace with a torrent of ailments and issues generated by two wars for the more than 2 million Americans who served overseas since 9/11, according to a sweeping assessment by a panel of leading scientists.

The nearly 800-page study, completed over four years by the Institute of Medicine and released Tuesday, portrays a nation struggling to anticipate and understand consequences of a decade of war and grueling demands placed on its military and unprecedented kinds of wounds troops have suffered. The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs are trying to help, but "the response does not match the magnitude of the problems, and many readjustment needs are unmet or unknown," says the report by the institute, the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

The nation waged war in Iraq and Afghanistan in unprecedented ways, the study found, using a limited-size, all-volunteer force; deploying troops repeatedly for up to 15 or 18 months at a time; allowing less than a year of rest between tours; and filling the military's ranks with historically high numbers of women, parents, National Guard troops and reservists. "The urgency of addressing these issues is heightened by the sheer number of people affected, the rapid drawdown of personnel from Afghanistan and Iraq, and the long-term effects that many of the issues might have, not only on military personnel and veterans and their family but on the country as a whole," the study found.

The study was the result of 2008 federal legislation directing the Pentagon to learn more about the readjustment needs of returning troops. "These are extraordinary challenges," said Dr. George Rutherford, who chaired the group that produced the report. "We are learning as we're going. I think the VA and (Defense Department) have really exerted extraordinary efforts to try and get it right ... but there are some areas that need to be improved." To this day, almost nothing is known about long-term outcomes of signature, war-related problems such as mild traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and suicidal tendencies, the scientists found.

Other key findings:

 

[waltky]

Obama keepin' his eye onna VA backlog problem...

White House closely following VA claims backlog problem
April 5, 2013 WASHINGTON -- Administration officials said they will consider a presidential commission to deal with the mounting veterans claims backlog, but said top officials from every federal agency are already working on the problem.

Members of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America delivered a 34,000-signature petition to the White House last month asking for a presidential commission to deal with the backlog issue. VA officials have promised that recent processing advances and new electronic claims systems will eliminate the backlog -- cases which take more than 125 days to process -- in 2015. But veterans groups, including the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, remain skeptical that goal is realistic.

In a meeting with reporters Friday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough said the commission idea is under discussion, and no decision has been made yet. But he also emphasized that the president has ordered an “all-of-government effort” to address the backlog problem and is aware of the growing frustration.

In addition to already existing coordination between the Defense Department and veterans affairs, McDonough said members of the National Security Council have discussed possible solutions. “The president has directed that everybody in the government who has a piece of this action needs to address this effort,” he said. “We’re involved with this on a daily basis to try and bring that number down.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said the backlog is likely to increase in coming months as new electronic processing systems are deployed at regional centers, but he is still confident the department will meet the 2015 goal. The average wait for new disability and compensation claims to be processed is almost nine months, with almost 70 percent of the pending 825,000 claims past the department’s stated completion goal of four months.

Both Shinseki and the department have come under heavy criticism from lawmakers and the media in recent weeks for a lack of progress on the effort, but numerous veterans groups have supported Shinseki’s long-term approach to the problem. McDonough said the president closely follows those backlog numbers, and is focused on finding solutions. “He wants results on this,” McDonough said.

Source

See also:

Experimental drug offers more time for battlefield wounded
April 6, 2013 - An Australian scientist and Navy medical researchers are developing an injection that could greatly extend the time severely wounded servicemembers have before reaching a hospital, while protecting their vital organs from the effects of shock and blood loss.

When someone loses a lot of blood, the body goes into shock. Blood pressure drops and organs don’t get the blood and oxygen they need to survive. The most common treatment outside of a blood transfusion is to pump the injured person with up to a liter of salt water or, in some cases, a starch solution. Salt water replaces the volume of blood lost. Circulation continues, but it does nothing to protect the heart and can dilute the blood to dangerous levels if overused.

Geoffrey Dobson has come up with a small-dose drug named Adenocaine that instructs the body to increase circulation without diluting the blood. “The heart slowly hits the accelerator and raises the blood pressure of a soldier into what they call a permissive range,” he said. “It’s enough oxygen to get to vital organs and sustain life, but not high enough to pop the blood clot or re-bleed.” The battlefield implications are clear, and if Dobson’s use of the drug becomes a reality, the military may well have hummingbirds to thank for it.

Dobson began his academic career in zoology, well before taking his current post in the Heart and Trauma Research Laboratory at Australia’s James Cook University. Dobson became interested in the way hummingbirds and other hibernating animals naturally slow their hearts. Doctors typically arrest human hearts during surgery by flooding it with a solution high in potassium. The drawback is that this alters the heart’s voltage and potentially introduces complications. Dobson developed the mixture of drugs called Adenocaine in the late 1990s to preserve the heart’s natural electrical state, and it has been used in thousands of surgeries.

What then piqued Dobson’s curiosity, and drew the interest of defense officials, was how gently the drug appeared to resuscitate patients as it wore off. “At high concentration [of Adenocaine], the heart arrests,” Dobson said. “At a low concentration, the heart just wakes up.” The drug in its resuscitative form would fit in a single syringe, lightening the load for medics and corpsmen who carry saline or hetastarch.

MORE

 

[waltky]

A solution to the VA backlog?...

William and Mary law students may have model for cutting VA backlog
April 30, 2013 — At the College of William and Mary, a small group of law school students has tackled a very large problem.

They help military veterans applying for benefits to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, taking on the most difficult and complex cases. Under supervision from an attorney, these students donate hundreds of hours of legal assistance, fast-tracking cases that would otherwise be hopelessly stuck in the system. They track down witnesses to verify claims, pore through stacks of records and partner with students at other Virginia schools who bring other specialties to bear, such as psychology students who can assess a claim of post traumatic stress disorder.

At the moment, about 14 law school students are handling some 50 cases at what is formally known as the Lewis B. Puller Jr. Veterans Benefit Clinic. Sen. Mark R. Warner has followed the clinic's progress since it began taking cases in 2009. Now, amid rising criticism of the VA and its backlog of cases, Warner said he sees more than a law school clinic doing good work. He sees a national model.

Virginia's senior senator is urging VA Secretary Eric Shinseki to replicate the W&M model at law schools across the country. It won't solve the crisis alone – there are hundreds of thousands of backlogged cases – but Warner said it could reduce the most complex cases. In a letter to Shinseki, Warner noted the clinic has partnered with schools across Virginia as the Helping Military Veterans Through Higher Education Consortium (HMVHE), better known as "humvee." "The idea of having these volunteer caseworkers at law schools is an added tool," Warner said. "What William and Mary has done, they've kind of put together a how-to book."

Warner, a former high-tech entrepreneur from Northern Virginia, has shown a fondness for looking outside the Beltway to solve problems that bedevil Congress. When embarrassing mix-ups plagued Arlington National Cemetery, he enlisted a technology council from Northern Virginia to examine Arlington's record-keeping system and recommend changes. The beauty of expanding the William and Mary model is that it can happen at little cost – and it can skirt gridlock. If the VA wants to promote the idea, it can. "We don't even have to pass a law," Warner said.

Shades of complexity

 

[yidnar]

I'm sure you are only partially right. Like all of Obama's policies, black veterans will go to the front of the line. But that will only be temporary. Eventually, they will suffer alongside everyone else.

that's a fact .

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

All those fake disabilities like non combat ptsd need to be thrown out so real disabled vets can get services

friggin frauds from Vietnam Era (we all know them), Gulf War, Grenada,
Panama...

 

[editec]

Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits


March 12, 2013
By Daniel Greenfield

Obama Inc’s standard policy seems to be screwing veterans. Between the cuts to veteran health care via Tricare, education funding and mass firing of military personnel while handing out billions of dollars to his backers, Obama has inflicted catastrophic damage on countless military families.

But Obama’s worst impact may have been on the most vulnerable veterans.

...

This is an outrage, but unfortunately the Obama Disaster extends across the entire Federal Government. The new IT systems never work the way that they are supposed to. The consultants cash in and the people are told to get lost.

If only Obama had devoted as much care and effort to working on an information management system for veterans as he did for his campaign. But the Chief Executive of the Eternal Campaign of Obama Inc. has his priorities.

Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits

20 times longer than before he took office?

Well, maybe although I have my doubts about the 2000% figure

But that there is a longer waiting time, that I do NOT doubt.

After all, the wounded of the Central Asian misadventures are just now coming in for treatment and evaluation.

 

[Mr. President]

I was told it would take 405 days to complete my claim. That's longer than any of my deployments lol

 

[Truthmatters]

can any of you tell us WHY?????

for a starter not many were coming home under Bush without going right back OR not being alive

 

[Mr. President]

Well honestly Im scheduled for another deployment. You are actually encouraged to start your claim before you get out that way you can at least get the process going.

 

[Moonglow]

I was honorably discharged from the Army in 1988, after we got out our medical care stopped, unless it was service related. Not until Bush jr did I get to go back to the VA.

 

[Katzndogz]

It's a matter of financial priorities. Sex change operations have to be covered first.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits

That's not what the article says. It says:

The ranks of veterans waiting more than a year for their benefits grew from 11,000 in 2009, the first year of Obama’s presidency, to 245,000 in December — an increase of more than 2,000 percent.

That's not the same thing as waiting 2000% longer.

You sure like to read shit posted by morons.

 

[OohPooPahDoo]

Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits


March 12, 2013
By Daniel Greenfield

Obama Inc’s standard policy seems to be screwing veterans. Between the cuts to veteran health care via Tricare, education funding and mass firing of military personnel while handing out billions of dollars to his backers, Obama has inflicted catastrophic damage on countless military families.

But Obama’s worst impact may have been on the most vulnerable veterans.

...

This is an outrage, but unfortunately the Obama Disaster extends across the entire Federal Government. The new IT systems never work the way that they are supposed to. The consultants cash in and the people are told to get lost.

If only Obama had devoted as much care and effort to working on an information management system for veterans as he did for his campaign. But the Chief Executive of the Eternal Campaign of Obama Inc. has his priorities.

Under Obama, Veterans Wait 2000% Longer for Disability Benefits

20 times longer than before he took office?

Well, maybe although I have my doubts about the 2000% figure

But that there is a longer waiting time, that I do NOT doubt.

After all, the wounded of the Central Asian misadventures are just now coming in for treatment and evaluation.

There is nothing in the blog or article to substantiate the claim made in the title.

 

[Truthmatters]

yeah well lies are all they have left to defend their historically failed ideas