Disabled vets stuck in backlog limbo

[choie]

Source: Center for Investigative Reporting

For disabled veterans awaiting benefits decisions, location matters

By Aaron Glantz

If you’re a Northern California veteran who has waited a year for a decision on a war-related disability claim, you might consider a move to South Dakota – where the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs typically responds in less than half the time.

Returning home from Afghanistan to New York, Los Angeles, Chicago or Atlanta? Veterans who live in Lincoln, Neb., and Fargo, N.D., get their benefits faster.

The geographic inequity of VA wait times is fully detailed for the first time in an analysis by The Bay Citizen and its parent organization, the Center for Investigative Reporting. Simply put: Veterans in sparsely populated states often encounter quick resolution of their compensation claims for problems ranging from back injuries to post-traumatic stress disorder while those in metropolitan areas languish.

In California, veterans who file claims with any of the VA’s three regional offices – in Oakland, Los Angeles and San Diego – wait more than nine months on average.

Read more: http://cironline.org/veteransclaims#story

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This is just disgusting. What the hell are Shinseki and Obama doing?

[Archae]

1. Don't blame Shinsecki or Obama.

The VA was gutted by Smirky and his goons.

They didn't give a flying fuck about veterans except as props.

The VA red-tape swarm began under Nixon, when Nixon raided the VA funds and personnel for his pet projects.

Democratic presidents have tried to revamp the VA, but get blocked by the republicans, including Mitch the Bitch and Orange Man.

[freshwest]

3. Agreed. See: What's this about Romney/Ryan cutting the VETERANS ADMINISTRATION budget?

Do veterans who are being fed the FOX swill, know what Romney and Ryan have in mind for them? Do they think they or their brothers in arms will be able magically survive this:

What's this about Romney/Ryan cutting the VETERANS ADMINISTRATION budget?

This seems to gone unnoticed? These are the first steps for Romney/Ryan to cut the VA.

But a budget proposal by top Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin to trim spending at the Department of Veterans Affairs had some DAV members worried.

"If they go and approve this, we will have some of the smaller VA facilities closing down in rural states," said Gene Murphy, the state DAV director. "Then you're going to put these veterans' into the Medicare and Medicaid programs."

Budget Panel Eyes End to VA Care for 1.3 Million Vets

The House Budget Committee, chaired by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), has told a veterans' group it is studying a plan to save $6 billion annually in VA health care costs by canceling enrollment of any veteran who doesn't have a service-related medical condition and is not poor.

Committee Republicans, searching for ways to curb federal deficits and rein in galloping VA costs, are targeting 1.3 million veterans who claim priority group 7 or 8 status and have access to VA care.

http://www.vmwusa.org/index.php/healthcareservices/hcarticles/47-health/1079-va-care-end-eyed-for-13-million-vets

That's from the OP by Rosa Luxemborg here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1251&pid=75426

I don't know how many knew of Rand Paul's plans for cutting funds for VA hospitals with defense, but he was forced to compromise.

I know vets who receive all their health care from these facilities. They are their lifeline, even send nurses to their homes for all kinds of things. Very good services.

This plan puts them in Medicaid, which the GOP also wants to cut. They will be in the group they despise, Welfare Recipients.

Sadly many despise Obama more, who's working to care for vets.

[CountAllVotes]

4. oh isn't that nice NOT!!!

My husband is a Korean war vet (drafted!). He gets nothing from the VA even though he was released with an honorable discharge an a Special Commendation for his service from JFK being his service time was extended, so BIG DAMN DEAL huh?

Now he is going blind. If it weren't for me, he'd be in a nursing home now.

Thanks for nothing VA!

These maladministrations invest all of their time, money, effort into one thing and that is the little piggies on Wall Street, their PRIORITY!

& recommend!!!!!

[freshwest]

5. My BNL is dying from Agent Orange and is well cared for, after years of being supported by his wife,

He finally got the full disability coverage from his injuries in Vietnam which had put him off of work for twenty years while my sister worked to support him. They always took care of his medical needs since Vietnam, but didn't send him a check until a few years back with full documentation. The veterans groups in his area worked to get him all he needed. Their home mortgage was covered by benefits as a service member, too.

He now gets a monthly check for 100% service related disability, full prescription coverage, case management, home nursing care, hospitalization and his home was refitted as well as a van to carry him around in. My sister is nearing retirement and relieved, since her private insurance was truly deadly to her health and she expects to be covered as his spouse.

Your husband is lucky to have you taking care of him in his time of need, even though your profile says Life is Hell. Take care of yourself and your beloved spouse and I hope things will get better for you.

[TBF]

7. My dad has been getting that for years -

his disability was a few years earlier than Agent Orange (earlier defoliants that they took over to Viet Nam) but we just lucked out in being from a small town. His VA counselors were tremendously helpful. All of his exposure was documented (also wartime service) and he was able to retire and have surgery about 30 years ago. He lives in a very small town to keep his expenses down but it's within an hour of a very good VA hospital. They've been very good to him and really to all of us - my siblings and I qualified for the GI bill due to his wartime disability. But I have no doubt that any republicans will do their best to slash his benefits - it's what they do to former military.

[freshwest]

9. My BNL and sister are very grateful for their coverage. He was able to work for a while...

In the years following his service in Vietnam. My sister had to deal with his undiagnosed PTSD and what turned into a very heavy smoking addiction. I'm talking chain smoking all day and night long and not going to sleep at night.

He never admitted to having any problems, but was a gunner who took out people with machine gun fire from a plane close up. He described things people do not think about in civilian life.

But he never sought counseling for not being able to sleep, saying 'I just did my duty, so it didn't matter.' But as a generous and kind man and quite intelligent, I'm sure it affected him. He underwent special training, and they had to stop sleeping together for a few years because he was violent when not awake fully.

We nearly lost him and my brother, also a vet, a few years ago, who had a condition that paralyzed them from the neck down for some time and nearly killed them. They had to have surgery at the VA and then services began to pour in for both of them.

Not for the same causes of injury in service as my brother had none. My BNL's physical injuries were minor to him, but in retrospect, his mental injuries were very serious. He still refuses to talk of it.

I'm glad that your family is getting the help it needs.

[TBF]

12. Well my dad got the help he needed -

my uncle, however, was much like your BIL. He ended up living (and dying) under a bridge many years ago. Same thing - mental issues. It is easier I think with the physical impairments to put together a case and present it.

I have one other uncle as well who was a MP and will not speak of his duties in service. He was very sick for awhile when I was in high school but they got him through it (malaria or something that they figured he picked up over there).

I can't imagine what it is like to serve during wartime. It's absolutely despicable that politicians get us into these wars to start with, and then make veterans jump through hoops when they get home.

[AsahinaKimi]

2. My friend, who is a Viet Nam Era Vet

Told me that he had to wait five years to get 100% disability. First it was 50% disability, then 75% and finally 100%. The difference is of course more money to live on. He can not work, so he lives on this. He told me that it takes a lot of time and effort to find proof, to get supported letters from Doctors, and to find a decent advocate who works on helping Vets get the needed help. In California they have an excellent facility in Ft. Miley but there are a ton of Vets going there, and I am sure it becomes frustrating. I can't even imagine.

[freshwest]

6. Yes, that was the case with my BNL.

[magic59]

10. Most of the vets I know are republican

Why they love the party that sends them to war then refuses to support them when they are injured?

[freshwest]

13. My experience with this in my family may make sense, I hope.

Last edited Wed Aug 29, 2012, 08:32 PM - Edit history (1)

My brother wasn't injured in the service and is a Democrat. My BNL the veteran was disinterested, plain and simple. Both are strong supporters of the social services for all Americans, particularly the disabled.

But my sister went teabag a few years ago and even he is having trouble with her outspoken screwy ideas, angry and hatred that has developed. It's finished our relationship, unfortunately, as she now see the part of the USA I live and myself by default, 'the enemy.'

She was furious about the 2008 debate where Ron Paul spoke against the war(s). She called me up, screaming he should be killed! For speaking against the war. This was even before the baggers got big nationally.

She knows I'm a Democrat and a dove so she considers me an idiot now because I'm not living in Glennbeckistan like her. I figured out her support for the wars and the military were based on her notions of survival and what she feels she has lost being married to a veteran, and what she gained by it and expects to get more.

The reason for her becoming a hawk, although no one in our family was, I believe, is pain. She has watched her hero go to pieces over the years. She thought they were going to do very well in life and that was important to her, the financial security and all that.

But it didn't turn out the way she planned. The mind looks for a cause, a blame. She decided, instead of the way some anti-war people have, that veterans got screwed, that there was a something else. That there is sacred reason for her discomfort. It had to be made noble, somehow.

That came to her in that way of thinking that soldiers are better and more entitled perks than any other citizen. That if they get sick and are without funds, their nation owes it to them and their family for life. That meaning her. So as long as she lives, she feels that she is entitled more than many others.

She has ranted about this many times, that illegal immigrants and people that have not worked as long as she did, are getting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And she has literally stated that they are stealing from her.

It is not much higher than her own survival. She glorifies the MIC since it has given her a place in life that she was not able to achieve otherwise. She mocked my job which was heavy and dirty and was under a union contract. She worked for much less where she worked but they gave her a fancy title and she bragged she was management.

I have a kid and know parents who have kids that are disabled from birth and recieve benefits from the government. They fall in the category of the unworthy in her world view, since they were never able to do the kind of work that we were able to do.

It's pointless to argue equality or a social safety net with her. She is clinging to that idea she is better than other citizens, that her pain is greater than anyone else's. That may be the lifeline vets who are Republican are hanging onto, to demand the support and respect of the whole population, and survive.

Not well expressed, but what I learned from discussing it with her. I think most of the things that people do are about survival.

[The River]

11. As an Actual Vet

I can't say enough good things about VA health care or disability compensation.

Yes, there are backlogs and mistakes but the VA didn't create the 100's of thousands
of vets now returning from Iraq-Afganistan. They do the best they can with what they have.

Blame the people who start the wars that create the wounded vets, not the people trying to help.

[chknltl]

14. plus 1 nt