This week Rep. Bob Filner (D CA-51), ranking member and former chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, joined MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show to ask the question: Why is the VA so broken and how do we fix it?
Filner is livid about the state of the system and backlog. So are thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans seeking care nationwide. It isn't news to them that the VA disability claims process is flat out broken, and IAVA has been sounding the alarm to VA, Congress and the White House since our organization was founded in 2004. Even after four years of record budgets and monumental increases to manpower at VA, the disability claims backlog is sitting at a staggering 65 percent -- roughly 870,000 claims waiting for action nationwide. This claims backlog is a national disgrace for our country, and the VA has been less than aggressive in tackling the problem. As a result, for our veterans' community, this situation is leaving the lives of hundreds of thousands of OIF/OEF veterans and veterans of all generations hanging in the balance.
In a heated moment earlier this month, Rep. Filner went as far as to suggest to Congress that the VA system is so bad that we might as well "blow it up."
On Maddow, he went as far as to suggest that veterans groups like IAVA advocating in Washington are actually standing in the way of true reform. "I think it's a bureaucracy that has been in charge for decades that doesn't want to do anything differently," Filner said. "It's veterans groups who sort of have -- they drank the Kool-Aid of the bureaucracy. They say, well let's just play around the edges of it. And they're afraid to take on the system."
For the record: IAVA has been and remains in the middle of this fight to reform the VA disability process. Our membership has been taking on the system before Rep. Filner took chair of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. In 2010, disability reform was our top policy priority in Washington -- and in the end, ironically, it was stymied by opposition in Congress.
So how can we fix the process?
First, Congress, the White House, VA and all VSOs can start by getting on the same page: the VA disability process was obsolete before most Iraq and Afghanistan veterans of this generation were even born. The process lacks transparency. It's confusing, complicated, still paper-based -- and we have yet to see any significant implementation of a digital records system by the VA. Through technology and modern business practices, the VA can fix many of these problems. They can surely make the process faster and more accurate for veterans seeking care.
But the real challenge is cutting down the complexity of the system and implementing a realistic plan of action. Blowing up the system doesn't solve the problem or help vets. So on Maddow, Filner pitched a bold Hail Mary to fix the system: Let veterans file VA disability claims like they would file their taxes with the IRS.
Bold solution? Maybe. New solution? No -- Linda Bilmes originally proposed this plan in her research at Harvard. Smart solution? Definitely not.
In a nutshell, Filner's pitch suggests that every veteran should be able to tell the VA what they think their injuries are and if they believe that they are 1) mildly, 2) moderately, or 3) severely disabled. The theory goes that VA would then audit a small percentage of these claims to ensure their accuracy. Filner and Bilmes believe this would make the process faster. IAVA and the majority of Veterans Service Organizations do not.
Here's why:
In order to ensure that veterans get the benefits that they deserve, the VA needs to medically evaluate every veteran's injuries or obtain medical evidence of those injuries. Unless you are a doctor, you have no idea how to evaluate your own injuries. When I filed my taxes, I knew how much I made and how much I paid in taxes. The IRS has access to verifiable data and taxes are about math. By contrast, when I filed my disability claim after left the Army in 2007, I had no idea that I had a 30 percent loss of motion -- service-related -- in my left shoulder due to a permanently damaged rotator cuff. If I hadn't undergone an evaluation, the VA wouldn't have known, either. At the time, all I knew was that my arm hurt and I couldn't lift certain things. I had no idea how that quantified and qualified as a disability rating. I'm a veteran. Not a medical expert. I don't pretend to be one, and neither should any other veteran.
While a clever campaign slogan, making the VA disability process work like the IRS would be a disaster for both veterans and the VA. Yes, the VA is currently failing at evaluating disability in a timely and accurate manner. But allowing non-medical professionals to guess disability ratings is no solution to the problem. It sounds slick on television and in speeches, but it isn't a realistic or viable fix. No expert in the veterans' or disability community supports the idea. And it isn't -- as Rep. Filner claims -- that veterans' groups have "drank the VA's bureaucratic Kool-Aid" or that we "don't support veterans" that we serve. We just know what we are talking about.
Across the country, OIF/OEF veterans and veterans of all generations are suffering because the VA is failing to deliver. Instead of throwing Hail Marys or mudslinging in campaign season, it's time that we get serious about helping the VA recognize and fix its biggest flaws:
• We need the VA to implement its long-awaited paperless claims system.
• We need the VA to adopt a culture that rewards accuracy and customer service.
• We need the VA to figure out how to make the claims process transparent.
• We need the VA's leadership to step up and publicly fight for its beneficiaries.
Those of us in the VSO community have been proposing tested, realistic and proven solutions to these problems for years. In 2010, the VA adopted several of them and there was even legislation (VA supported) that would have fixed many of these remaining issues. Unfortunately, it was those in Congress including Rep. Filner who subscribed to wild theories that obstructed real reform that could have made a big difference by now for millions of veterans.
Ultimately, this debate isn't about process or systems -- it's about saving lives. The reality is that 65 percent of America's veterans are waiting too long for benefits that would connect them with critical care, services and programs to better their lives. They need serious solutions, they need them now, and its long past time Congress stepped up and had their backs.
Tom Tarantino is the deputy policy director at IAVA.
IAVA has been a leading voice in holding the VA accountable for their failure to deliver timely and accurate disability benefits to veterans. In Washington and nationwide, we have been strong advocates for our 200,000 members and their families, fighting to ensure that the VA claims process provides them with the care and benefits that they need and deserve.
Nan Levinson: Mad, Bad, Sad: What’s Really Happened to America’s Soldiers
Veteran Disability Compensation | Military.com
Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
Model, Mission and History - Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America
1. Veteran shows up to the VA hospital or clinic. He or she is directed to the patient registration office. The vets DD214 or reviewed and he or she is entered into the system.
2. This same office would go over the veterans medical file WITH THE VETERAN. Diagnosed injuries, diseases or conditions would be clicked off on the computer. The vet would then have these in his file as "service connected".
3. The veteran then is set up with an appointment to see his or her primary doctor. The doctor would determine what the vet's current condition is. If the vet is currently suffering from anything that is listed in his file as "service connected" (from step 2). The doctor would determine the percentage right then and there.
4. If the vet is suffering from any other conditions or injuries and the doctor feels that they are directly caused by the vets service connected disabilities then these conditions would be listed as "secondary service connected conditions. The doctor would then rate these.
5. The doctor would input current diagnosis's and rating percentages in the computer. Prescribe a medical treatment plan and send the vet home.
6. The information that the doctor entered would then be transmitted to the regional office to start a compensation pay account for the vet. This step would be merely a computer related task.
No Revenues {nor private capital economic investments, free market capitalism} = No Sacrifice = No Support = DeJa-Vu all over again!. Now a decade and counting, told to go shopping, added to the previous decades of under funding the VA, while the peoples reps Still try and lay blame on the Agency, after rubber stamping wars and costs of and those represented cheer on these wars!
While the wealthy and other investors garner their booty, still, from both and many have the chutz·pa to call themselves more patriotic{?} then others wrapped in those false flags, using false slogans and various cheap symbols of and then seek one day events or parades to wave all that patriotism, call it "Supporting the Troops", then go home and either ignore or forget about those that actually sacrificed for the country!
USN '67-'71 All Shore GMG3 Vietnam In Country '70-'71
If you're unable to work after you get out of the military, or only able to get a very low paying job, then waiting months or years to be informed that you're getting Service Connected can be even life threatening.
There is, of course, a far easier way to fix this problem: a full single-payer system for all Americans. It would make the entire backlog problem moot.
Thanks for the failure comment. Your organization sets up Veterans against the VA from the start. The negative attitudes, belligerent comments and general disrespect for an agency that works hard everyday ON YOUR BEHALF is disgraceful.
IAVA hasn't been around long enough to be a leading voice. You sound angry. Not a good conversation starter.
The VETS are constantly getting the short end of the stick once they return home and it must stop...
you sent them to war... now deal with the consequences of taking care of them for life...
OBAMA 2012
SEND MITT HIS WALKING PAPERS AND RETURN HIM TO THE PRIVATE SECTOR HE LOVES...
HONE UP YOU LEADERSHIP SKILLS IN NOVEMBER AND FIRE ANY AND EVERY GOP CANDIDATE YOU CAN ... GIVE THEM THEIR PINK SLIPS BEFORE THEY CAN GIVE YOU ONE.
HOW DO YOU BEAT THE 1 PERCENT? DIVIDE AND CONQUER....
That's obviously true and it's an embarrassment that it hasn't been done already.
Prediction: The VA will eventually ordered by Congress to convert over to a computerized system, and a contract will be let (possibly without bids) to some giant multinational member of the MIC, and $500 million later, they'll abandon the effort and start all over. Precedents: Air traffic control, IRS, and a number of others.
The true embarrassment is when people claim that things aren't being done without doing their homework on the subject.
The VA comp and pen system is broken. It is a new social welfare system that will go bust with the crap claims that are hitting the system every day. You have no idea the amount of stress that goes on in the VA to process claims, correctly, timely and in the best interest of the Veterans.
How you to point the finger at the obvious ways the VA should do business. You make my point for me on how clueless your organization is about the claims process.
If you have any scrap of evidence saying you suffered a condition in the military which you had not suffered from prior, that is service connection-period. That is the law-do you understand that? The law affords all honorable veterans due process and benefit of doubt. It does not matter if the record is a picture of a soldiers broken arm, a massage therapist note or a medical transcript, in the absence of all other evidence that is the establishment of service connection. Yet the VA continues to deny claims for lack of "medical evidence".
All this delay tactic does is to attribute compensable injuries to the natural progression of old age and chronological degeneration that does occur but does not explain away the effective date of the onset of chronic injuries.
Compensation is increased even when your situation gets worse because you get old, fat ,smoke, drink, do drugs, don't take care of your service connected disabilities. Hence the backlog of claims.
Do you understand that?
Back in the '80s it was HMOs, they were denying care. Turns out, that was the medical industry propaganda, because HMOs limited their profit. And so does the VA, hence this flap. This is the medical industry talking. They want to privatize the VA for their greater profit.
The VA is like the Post Office: it's government and it works, so conservatives must destroy it.