60 Minutes just did a devastating story on the VA. An application for a disability pension is 23 pages long and it takes an average of 6 months to get it approved. If the veteran contests the VA ruling, it takes 4 years! There is a backlog of 1 million claims. Disgraceful!
I've been trying for 18 months to get the month of death disability check repaid. The VA wanted the refund from me within 30 days, knowing full well they'd have to repay it. The County VA assistant, the State of IL have gotten nowhere. I've now enlisted the aid of my Congressman who is putting pressure on the VA office in Carolina to get this cleared up. I am fortunate that I'm not really in need of the check, it's now the principle of it but I sure do feel for those who are in need of the funds.
When I applied for VA benefits in 1968, it took seven months to begin receiving my payments.
60 Minutes wasn't telling me anything I wasn't aware of to some degree.
But, hey.... the government does a wonderful job running their programs as some here have so eloquently pointed out. Just wait until these same people have their health care in the hands of government bureaucrats and office workers who don't give a crap if anything gets done or not. After all, their motive is a paycheck and how much they do for it isn't an issue.
I think some of the problem the "old heads" had when applying for VA benefits was that 'Nam was not a war with great public oversight, so the government (and thus the VA) could deny a great many things which caused disabilities such as Agent Orange complications. Nam was also a "draft" war as opposed to the current Near East where the public feeling is "They volunteered fer gaw'sake so we owe 'em", neverminding that a good many volunteered in 'Nam.
Now the VA is swamped with returnees from Desert Storm and the current deployments with injuries that are fully documented (unlike Agent Orange problems) and is suffering from years of funding cuts by several administrations. Less funding means fewer staff to process claims, fewer physicians to examine and review claimants, more time "in process". Couple that with our country's general expectations of instant gratification and "We got trouble right here in River City".
A while back there was a thread on a Thomas Friedman(?) column holding up the VA as a great model of how the goverment can do healthcare well. I raised my skepticisms of that claim based on my father spending 45 years in that system prior to his death a year and a half ago and all the issues we had over the years, plus the fact that my wife is a nurse and the healthcare community does not hold the VA in high regard (to say the least). I was taken to task over that as just some "anecdotal" evidence, and told that you can find problems with any system but not to overlook the overall good of the system.
I stand by my skepticisn.
There is a difference between the health care side of the VA (which is probably not all that bad) and the benefit side, which is a bureaucratic morass. Disability applications/payments are benefits. Paper tends to have someone "put ketchup on it and eat it for lunch".
(01-04-2010 10:38 AM)bsba79 Wrote: [ -> ]A while back there was a thread on a Thomas Friedman(?) column holding up the VA as a great model of how the goverment can do healthcare well. I raised my skepticisms of that claim based on my father spending 45 years in that system prior to his death a year and a half ago and all the issues we had over the years, plus the fact that my wife is a nurse and the healthcare community does not hold the VA in high regard (to say the least). I was taken to task over that as just some "anecdotal" evidence, and told that you can find problems with any system but not to overlook the overall good of the system.
I stand by my skepticisn.
+1 on this.
The VA has been held in low regard in the medical community for as long as I can remember. On a more personal note, one of my first job experiences was in DC during the Reagan administration with a consulting firm where the management was particularly proud of the volume of cuts they were able to recommend and implement to medical care for veterans. It was an interesting counterpoint to the military buildup that was constantly being hyped at the time.
I suspect that the VA is usually a prime target for extensive budget cuts whenever we aren't concurrently conducting a protracted war some place. When there isn't a growing list of combat casualties, the media doesn't seems to have much interest in the VA. Which I thnk probably makes it an easier budgetary target.