Veterans Affairs Department Celebrates 75th Birthday
By Tara Fehr
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 – Today is not only a celebration of America’s veterans, but the 75th anniversary of the establishment of a federal agency to provide health and other benefits to veterans and their families.
With an increasing number of military men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, the quality and timeliness of that health care is still a primary concern for many veterans as well as for the Department of Veterans Affairs, created in 1989 to replace the Veterans Administration.
Waiting to receive treatment is a problem for many veterans, but there has been an improvement, according to Rep. Robert Simmons, R-2 nd District, who served on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee for four years.
When he first came to Congress, Simmons said, Connecticut veterans could wait a year or longer for the VA to address their claims, but now the backlog is reduced. All claims, including education, pension and disability compensation, are included in the backlog.
“Once you get in the door it’s excellent,” Joe Davis, director of public affairs for the Veterans of Foreign Wars, said of the VA benefits system. But as of last week, he said, about 763,000 claims remain unsettled.
Simmons said the department is part of the problem.
“It’s an inefficient system,” Simmons said. “A lot of the money that we spend on the VA is to sustain these inefficiencies.”
For example, if veterans want to get their medicine through the department, prescriptions from civilian doctors can not be used. Instead, they would need a physical and complete diagnosis by a VA. Simmons said this could take up to a year.
“This is ridiculous,” Simmons said. “That’s part of what contributes to the backlog.”
Laurie Tranter, a VA public affairs official, said the program does not have a standard waiting time because each case is different, depending on the location of the claim and the health care needs of the veteran.
According to Simmons, there have been improvements as a result of legislation. Before he ran for Congress, he said, active-duty military families in his district were living off food stamps and veterans weren’t receiving adequate health care through the VA.
“When I ran for Congress veteran issues were one of my issues,” Simmons said. “I believed that the United States of America had not kept its promise to its veterans.”
During his four years on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, funding for veterans’ health care was increased by 38 percent and overall VA spending was increased by 50 percent, he said.
The VA has $30.8 billion in its discretionary budget for 2006, up from last year’s $30.6 billion. The senior Democrat on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Rep. Lane Evans of Illinois., said this increase is not enough to keep pace with growing “medical inflation” rates resulting from today’s wars.
“The growth in the number of VA patients is almost twice the amount of growth in resources available per patient,” Evans said.
Part of this growth is due to the return of service members from Iraq and Afghanistan, 15 percent of whom will develop post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a report last year by the Government Accountability Office(GAO).
The report said the VA lacked “information needed to determine whether it can meet an increase in demand for Veteran Affairs post-traumatic stress disorder services.” It stated that the department did not have enough veteran centers and facilities.
After meeting with officials from the GAO early this year, the department issued this response: “GAO failed to incorporate our data in their report.. We welcome any evaluation of our programs; we ask only that accuracy guide the process.”
An estimated 430,000 soldiers returned from Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Of that number about 119,000 asked for health care through the VA and about 36,000 asked for mental health care, with 16,000 receiving a provisional diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder, the VA’s Tranter said.
The department can only help veterans who enroll in the program, she said.
When you look at the number of patients enrolled in the department’s health care system the number diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder is small, Tranter said.
Mental disorders are one of the three biggest medical problems that veterans face, along with joint and back disorders and dental problems, she said. These issues have only been addressed in the past few years.
While on the committee, Simmons sponsored a bill that called for chiropractic and dental care through the VA health system. That bill became law.
“This is a way of bringing the VA to current standards,” Simmons said. “How’s a veteran going to get a job without any teeth?”
Veterans with mental health disabilities also have a hard time maintaining jobs and often end up homeless. The VA estimates that more than one-third of the adult homeless population are veterans.
“Traditionally, the military deals with health care as a physical phenomena, but America has overcome that.” Simmons said.
The VA’s homeless assistance programs serve about 40,000 homeless veterans a year, with about $231 million budgeted to support the programs, according to the department’s Web site.
Health care for veterans continues to be a high priority for many in Congress.
“The system is facing a financial crisis, yet the administration’s continuing response is to force veterans to pick up the slack – impose new fees, increase co-payments and force thousands of veterans who need care to go find it elsewhere,” Evans said.
Brooke Adams, a spokeswoman for Steven Buyer, R-Ind., the chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said that every piece of committee legislation affects health care. For example, the House unanimously passed Buyer’s bill to improve management of information technology within the VA and the Department of Defense, and that will ultimately improve the quality and efficiency of veterans’ health care,.
Health care concerns will continue to increase as more soldiers come back from Iraq and Afghanistan. Evans considers this part of the continuing costs of the war.
“Costs of wars extend past the last shot,” Davis of the Veterans of Foreign Wars said.
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