EDITORIALS
The welcome they want
Time to focus on reliable benefits as New York veterans meet here
Women and men fighting for this country should be a constant on the minds and in the hearts of all Americans, and that gratitude should be demonstrated not only in words but in action. It’s all the 3,000 Veterans of Foreign Wars and their supporters want as they open a statewide convention in downtown Buffalo.
They are correct in assuming a warm and heartfelt welcome from the City of Good Neighbors, but such sentiments also should be demonstrated in the efficient delivery of veterans’ benefits. This year, especially, veterans’ health benefits need to be an important part of President Obama’s effort to reform health care.
Some things are fundamentally wrong. One is the dubious milestone of 1 million outstanding claims the U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs is poised to reach.
The VA’s Web site shows more than 722,000 current claims, with more than 172,000 appeals, for a total of about 900,000. And that’s an increase from about 800,000 total claims in January, according to the site. About 13,000 claims are pending in New York State.
The VA says the average wait for a claim is 120.9 days. And in many cases, veterans who were severely injured in Afghanistan and Iraq are living off credit cards and loans, losing their homes and suffering financial indignity. At times, files are misdirected across states before landing on the proper desk.
The Associated Press reported a case of a former Marine corporal from Virginia who was fortunate enough to get a job after being severely burned and having his right leg amputated after a roadside bomb explosion in 2006. Good thing, because he said his first claim was lost, the second ended up at a VA office in Colorado and the third was finally processed after a couple of months.
Veterans Affairs Deputy Undersecretary Michael Walcoff recently testified at a meeting of the House Subcommittee on Disability Assistance in which he bemoaned the steady and sizable increase in workload and the need to hire more claims processors and update how the system operates. It takes roughly two years to hire and train claims processors.
And then there are factors ranging from the complexity of processing mental-health related claims of Iraq veterans, to a change that made it easier for Vietnam veterans exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange to qualify for disability payments.
Obama has called for a 15.3 percent increase in funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs, which includes 13 percent more for veterans’ health care. The House Appropriations Committee recently approved the spending bill. Also, the House passed four bills that will benefit veterans, not the least of which is legislation giving Congress the ability to fund the VA a year before the start of the next fiscal year.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer’s pledge to make veterans’ bills a top priority on the legislative schedule is a promise that must be kept.
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