NPN benefitsBlog

VA Announces On-Line Claims Disability Applications

WASHINGTON (July 16, 2008) - The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) sent a press release to the National PASS Network this morning announcing today that on-line applications are now accepted from veterans, survivors and other claimants filing initial applications for disability compensation, pension, education, and vocational rehabilitation and employment benefits without the additional requirement to submit a signed paper copy of the application.

Effective immediately, VA will now process applications received through its on-line application website (VONAPP) without the claimant's signature. The electronic application will be sufficient authentication of the claimant's application for benefits. Normal development procedures and rules of evidence will still apply to all VONAPP applications.

VONAPP is a Web-based system that benefits both internal and external users. Veterans, survivors and other claimants seeking compensation, pension, education, or vocational rehabilitation benefits can apply electronically without the constraints of location, postage cost, and time delays in mail delivery.

VONAPP reduces the number of incomplete applications received by VA, decreasing the need for additional development by VA claims processors. The on-line application also provides a link to apply for VA health care benefits.

According to the VA, over 3.7 million veterans and beneficiaries receive compensation and pension benefits from VA and approximately 523,000 students receive education benefits. Approximately 90,000 disabled veterans participate in VA's Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment program.

20% of Iraq and Afghanistan Vets Suffer from PTSD or Major Depression

Nearly 20 percent of military service members who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan — 300,000 in all — report symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder or major depression, yet only slightly more than half have sought treatment, according to a new RAND Corporation study.

How the Military Has Repaid Iraq Vets With Permanent Disabilities

Bob Woodruff of ABC News has an interesting article recently, How the Military Has Repaid Iraq Vets With Permanent Disabilities. Why Soldiers With Traumatic Brain Injuries and Permanent Handicaps Are Considered Partially Disabled. The article, part of a series by Woodruff, is about how Americans are treating it's returning heroes who have traumatic brain injuries(TBI). It's estimated that 10-15% of Iraq GI's will returning to an ungrateful nation with serious TBI injuries they will have to live with the rest of their lives

According to Woodruff's article, veterans looking to the VA for disability compensation and assistance often have to prove they were exposed to blasts and have to follow an endless paper trail to substantiate injuries and medical records. The problem is that their injuries are such that they cannot pursue this endless runaround that would be difficult even for someone without injuries. The bottom line is with no one to provide assistance to these disabled veterans there is no help forthcoming. I'm also reminded of the neglect of Iraq veterans with a troubling statistic I saw from the DoD several months back noting that although more than 3 out of 10 soldiers met the criteria for a “mental disorder”, fewer than half of them received help.

It's a crying shame. We will wonder as a nation why the costs will pop up in other areas in the coming years. Look for our nation's homeless shelters to do a booming business serving unserved veterans. As a Vietnam Vet, I am reminded of the song Deja Vu All Over Again.

New EEOC Rules for Vets with Service Connected Disabilities

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has issued two new question-and-answer guides for providing technical assistance for employers and veterans on workplace issues affecting veterans with service-connected disabilities.

The new guide for employers explains how protections for veterans with service-connected disabilities differ under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). The document further describes how the ADA in particular applies to recruiting, hiring, and accommodating veterans with service-connected disabilities. The EEOC enforces Title I of the ADA, which prohibits employment discrimination against people with disabilities in the private sector and state and local governments. The U.S. Department of Labor enforces USERRA, which applies to the reemployment of veterans with and without service-connected disabilities.

The second publication answers questions that veterans with service-connected disabilities may have about the protections they are entitled to when they seek to return to their former jobs or look to find their first, or new, civilian jobs. The document also explains changes or adjustments that veterans may need, because of their injuries, to apply for, or perform, a job, or to enjoy equal access to the workplace.

Veterans Day 2007: 1 in 4 Homeless Are Vets

Last week, just in time for Veterans Day, came the news about how our country is really doing when it comes to honoring our veterans. According to a report from the National Alliance to End Homelessness in Washington DC, veterans make up 11% of the adult population but they make up over 25% of the homeless population.

It's not like us old Vets didn't see it coming. On these pages as far back as Christmas, 2004, NPN has been commenting on what we are doing to vets (check our Veterans Issues page out). I'm not clairvoyant, it just as a Vietnam veteran I have seen this happen to many times before. You just kind of shake your head in disbelief and wonder what President Bush and the Congress are thinking. Looks like there are some things we just never learn as a country.

Homelessness is a symptom of a system failure. In the case of military veterans, the failing system is the VA and the so called veteran's readjustment programs. The system is broken; has been for several decades. The job programs really don't really work and never have. The veteran's preference for employment that are really not preferences at all but a vehicles for discrimination (if organizations actively work to get around the preferences, it's discrimination).

The way the Iraq War is being fought will virtually insure that many vets will have to deal with mental illness, post-traumatic stress disorders or traumatic brain injuries. You know that's a lifetime challenge. American politicians are famous for talking about what they are gonna do, but short on what they really do. In the end the ones who are really pay is the vets. Many disabled vets will pay the individual costs of war all their life. When you don't have a job, no promising prospect of getting one and you have no place to live and no place eat in but the soup kitchens, we have a word for it in the US: homeless. Kind of not what we expected when the US Army told us to "be all you can be". It's a national disgrace.

VA to Host PTSD Research Conference

Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs Gordon H. Mansfield announced today the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will convene a "consensus conference" with the Department of Defense and the National Institutes of Health to improve the designs and methodologies all three agencies will use in future research studies regarding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The date/ location of the conference has not been confirmed.

Aid and Attendance an Unknown VA Long-Term Care Benefit for Disabled Vets

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is reaching out, according to a recent VA press release to NPN, to "inform wartime veterans and surviving spouses of deceased wartime veterans about an underutilzed, special monthly pension benefit called Aid and Attendance".

Although this is not a new program, not everyone is aware of their potential eligibility. The Aid and Attendance pension benefit may be available to wartime veterans and surviving spouses who have in-home care or who live in nursing-homes or assisted-living facilities.

Many elderly veterans and surviving spouses whose incomes are above the congressionally mandated legal limit for a VA pension may still be eligible for the special monthly Aid and Attendance benefit if they have large medical expenses, including nursing home expenses, for which they do not receive reimbursement. To qualify, claimants must be incapable of self support and in need of regular personal assistance.

The basic criteria for the Aid and Attendance benefit includes the inability to feed oneself, to dress and undress without assistance, or to take care of one’s own bodily needs. People who are bedridden or need help to adjust special prosthetic or orthopedic devices may also be eligible, as well as those who have a physical or mental injury or illness that requires regular assistance to protect them from hazards or dangers in their daily environment.

For a wartime veteran or surviving spouse to qualify for this special monthly pension, the veteran must have served at least 90 days of active military service, one day of which was during a period of war, and be discharged under conditions other than dishonorable.

Wartime veterans who entered active duty on or after September 8, 1980, (October 16, 1981, for officers) must have completed at least 24 continuous months of military service or the period for which they were ordered to active duty.

If all requirements are met, VA determines eligibility for the Aid and Attendance benefit by adjusting for un-reimbursed medical expenses from the veteran’s or surviving spouse’s total household income. If the remaining income amount falls below the annual income threshold for the Aid and Attendance benefit, VA pays the difference between the claimant’s household income and the Aid and Attendance threshold.

The Aid and Attendance income threshold for a veteran without dependents is now $18,234 annually. The threshold increases to $21,615 if a veteran has one dependent, and by $1,866 for each additional dependent. The annual Aid and Attendance threshold for a surviving spouse alone is $11,715. This threshold increases to $13,976 if there is one dependent child, and by $1,866 for each additional child.

Additional information and assistance in applying for the Aid and Attendance benefit may be obtained by calling 1-800-827-1000. Applications may be submitted on-line .

VA Loses 26.5 Million Veterans Social Security Data

In one of largest breaches of personal Social Security data in U.S history, burglars stole 26.5 million electronic personal data files from the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) low-level data analyst's home earlier this month. Why 30 years worth of sensitive data can be taken from a secure federal location as employee homework is still unclear.

According to Veterans Affairs Secretary R. James Nicholson, the names, birthdates and Social Security numbers of every living veteran discharged from the military since 1975. Other veterans who were discharged before 1975, but had applied for VA disability or other benefits since then has also had their personal data compromised. This would include massive numbers of Vietnam-era veterans who were moving through the VA system(GI Bill, VA home loans, VA disablity claims) in the decade after the war, which ended in 1972.

The VA has tried to downplay the gravity of this security compromise, suggesting the theft was a " random act and not an organized act". VA officials apparently tried to hide the burglary for three weeks before releasing the information.

Senator Larry Craig, R-Idaho, Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee conducted an emergency hearing on Thursday, noting that "twenty-six million people deserve answers," Senator John Kerry, D-Mass.and Represenative John Salazar, D-Colo., introduced legislation late Tuesday that would require the VA to provide free credit monitoring and reports to the affected veterans.

The VA has said that it will "send out notification letters to veterans to every extent possible". Veterans can also go to www.firstgov.gov as well as www.va.gov/opa to get additional information.

Clearly there is more to this story!

© Daniel Scarborough, 2006

Disability Costs for Iraq War High And Hidden From Public

Disablity costs for the the Iraq War is one of the hidden long term costs that no one likes to talk about, according to Linda Blimes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, a former assistant secretary at the Clinton Admistrationn Department of Commerce. Professor Blimes says the United States currently pays more than $2 billion in disability claims per year for 159,000 veterans of the 1991 gulf war, even though that conflict lasted only five weeks, with 148 dead and 467 wounded. If the 525,00 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans require the same level of care as Gulf War vets, the costs could be $ 7 billion a year for the next 45 years.

Gulf War Vets And Brain Cancer Disability

Science Daily reports that new research published in the August, 2005 issue of the American Journal of Public Health shows an increase in brain cancer deaths for veterans exposed to the nerve agent Sarin in Gulf War I. Over 100,000 soldiers were exposed to chemical warfare in Iraq during the first Gulf War. According to the new study,these vets now have double the risk of dying. What a shocker some 14 years after their exposure. Looks like the modern day version of Agent Orange.

Senate Increases VA Budget--Finally

After more than 6 months of blowing smoke about cutting Veterans Administration programs the Bush has had to backtrack as the Senate sent the president a budget with an extra $1.5 billion to make up for the cuts. Bush still has to sign the the budget after Congress returns from the summer recess.

The VA did not take into account the costs of caring for veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan and has misunderstood the increases in spending needed for longterm care for an aging veterans population. Administration officials say they miscaculated the costs, critics say the VA is playing politics with veteran's needs.

Bush Veterans Funding Catches Up With Reality- Enlistments Off

Back early 2005, President Bush started gutting the veteran health programs. Fellow Viet Vets warned that enlistments would fall of when the Irag vets learned that they would be getting the " big green weenie". (read DisabilityBlog articles) Now the Congress is rushing emrgency funds for vets health care. Enlistments are way off and the Bushites are worried.
Congressional Republicans are now saying with a straight face that no one told them. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jerry Lewis complained that the Veterans Administration was silent as his panel wrote a fiscal 2006 veterans spending bill.

Reuters reports that as recently as April, the VA told the Senate that veterans health care programs had adequate funding (no one believed them back then), but told a House Appropriations subcommittee the Veterans Administration had assumed it would have to take care of 23,553 patients who are veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan based on 2002 estimates, before the Iraq war started. That number has now been revised to 103,000, more than four times higher.

Veterans groups have long complained that funding is not keeping pace with rising medical costs and some veterans experience long waits for care. Meanwhille Army enlistments are way way down for the 4th and headed for the 5th month.

Bush Budget: Veterans Health Care Tax

Several weeks ago we reported the downright mean ouster of respected Veterans Affairs Committee, Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey. Now we know why, although most people knew what was coming. As reported in the NY Times, the administration budget is planning to cut once again services and health care access to veterans. Apparently, Mr. Smith was prepared to oppose the President on his budget.

The VA, under the proposals, would start charging a $250 fee to use VA services and would double the co-pay for needed drugs. The administration says the co-payment and the $250 "user fee" would apply mainly to veterans in "lower-priority categories".

The VA will concentrate on what officials describe as its"core constituency" they say is veterans with service-related disabilities or with low incomes. This is a subtle--but significant-- departure from the original core constituency for the VA: all veterans.

As expected, veterans are fighting the changes. Richard Fuller, with the Paralyzed Veterans of America, says it best: "The proposed increase in health spending is not sufficient at a time when the number of patients is increasing and there has been a huge increase in health care costs. It will not cover the need. The enrollment fee is a health care tax, designed to raise revenue and to discourage people from enrolling." "We are already seeing an increase in waiting lists, even for some Iraq veterans," Fuller added.

A spokeswoman for the VA said in public statements that "President Bush has kept his commitment to veterans". Meanwhile, the war in Iraq has pushed the U.S. military beyond its limits and recruits refuse to sign up to serve. I wonder if anyone is connecting the dots here. Bush says his budget is, "... a budget that focuses on results" and "targets ineffectual or redundant spending". What the results are remains unclear and referring to assistant to veterans as ineffectual or redundant is simply incorrect.

Disabled Veterans Lose Strong Voice in GOP Political Move

House Veterans' Affairs Committee Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) was "quietly" replaced last week in what many fellow veterans see as a crass political loyalty move by Bush Republicans Speaker Dennis Hastert( R-IL) and Majority Leader Tom DeLay(R-TX).

Smith's tireless efforts to find funding for veterans programs, especially disability programs, often butted heads with the Bush Administration on funding of VA hospitals. Smith wants more; Bush has always wanted less. Smith not only lost the Chairmanship but was forced completely out of his membership on the Veterans' Affairs Committee after 24 years.

Smith's demotion is mostly "neocon" partisan GOP payback for his expressed moderate views on labor, environmental and health care issues. His days were numbered though when Smith became the first Republican to push for the 9/11 Commission and then when he came out in opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge he was doomed.

Smith was quickly replaced by GOP insider Stephen Buyer(R-IN) who promptly praised the Bush Administration and promised to toe the GOP budget line. Congressman Buyer is a decorated Desert Storm veteran but that probably won't matter as party insiders insist on allegiance to Bush as a price to serve.

Buyer may do an about face if he is to solve some of the problems looming on the horizon brought on by the Iraq War. Vietnam vets like myself remember when VA programs started to slip right after Vietnam. The VA Hospital system is already hurting because of extreme budget cuts. In the last few months, homeless veterans from the Iraq War have been showing up on America's streets. Homeless veterans are one of the first signs of a failing and underfunded VA System(where are you gonna go?). The same mental problems and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder issues are back (17 percent of service members returning from Iraq met screening criteria for major depression, generalized anxiety disorder or PTSD). All these problems cost money to solve. The signs are that the Bush Administration that has run a war on the cheap is planning to serve returning veterans with a VA System on the cheap.