BY DR. DAVID SHULKIN AND DR. KYLE SHEETZ
As part of our commitment to those that have served,
taxpayers will spend $100 billion in 2019 towards benefits programs for
veterans. Costs for these programs have more than quadrupled since the year
2000. Few programs of this size and importance have received less attention
from a policy perspective.
The VA’s disability compensation system is complex,
cumbersome and frequently difficult to navigate. The approval process can be
frustrating and slow — from obtaining copies of military service records to
undergoing a comprehensive evaluation known as the Compensation and Pension
examination, which is used to assign a disability rating from 0-100 percent.
The exam itself was first conceived in the 1940’s. It has
only been modified through iterative changes and may fail to properly
acknowledge some of the most common issues facing today’s veterans, such as
post traumatic stress (PTS).
Veterans who are dissatisfied with initial decisions often
seek higher ratings. Despite real progress by VA in recent years, the backlog
of appeals remains large and hundreds of thousands of veterans wait on a system
impeded by legislative restrictions and its own bureaucracy. This perpetuates
an adversarial relationship between the veteran and VA. Many veterans who
struggle to obtain an initial benefits’ decision become locked into a
complicated process to prove their needs.
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