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STATEMENT OF SIDNEY DANIELS, DEPUTY DIRECTOR NATIONAL
LEGISLATIVE SERVICE VETERANS OF
FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON
BENEFITS COMMITTEE ON
VETERANS’ AFFAIRS UNITED STATES
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES WITH RESPECT TO VARIOUS BENEFITS LEGISLATION UNDER CONSIDERATION WASHINGTON, D.C. JULY 10, 2001 MR.
CHAIRMAN AND MEMBERS OF THE SUBCOMMITTEE: On behalf of the 2.7 million
members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States and its
Ladies Auxiliary, I appreciate the opportunity to comment on the
various benefits bills under consideration today. I would like to take a moment,
Mr. Chairman, to congratulate you on becoming Chairman of this
subcommittee. We look
forward to your stewardship and stand ready to assist you in any way
that we can. The legislation under consideration today is varied. It covers a wide variety of topics that are a concern to our members and to all of our nation’s veterans. In general, the VFW supports the legislation being offered, with some exceptions that will be noted below. Mr.
Chairman, the VFW strongly supports this legislation that would add a
presumption of service connection for veterans who have contracted
Diabetes Mellitus (Type 2 Diabetes), as a result of exposure to
certain herbicides. This legislation would provide the critically
needed benefits for veterans and their dependents who have had to
suffer the consequences of this devastating disease. As
part of PL 102-4, The Agent Orange Act of 1991, The Institute
of Medicine has been charged with determining the effects of Agent
Orange, and other herbicides, on those veterans who were exposed
during service. Their November 2000 report, Veterans and Agent Orange:
Herbicide/Dioxin Exposure and Type 2 Diabetes, found that “there
is limited/suggestive evidence of an association between exposure to
the herbicides used in Vietnam or the containment dioxin and Type 2
diabetes.” The
science clearly indicates that a connection between herbicide exposure
and Type 2 diabetes is likely. Because
of this, it is important that this legislation be enacted quickly so
that our Vietnam veterans can receive treatment for this disease. H.R.
1406--Gulf War Undiagnosed
Illness Act of 2001 The VFW supports this legislation to further clarify the standards used for compensation of Persian Gulf Undiagnosed Illness and to extend protection to veterans by allowing them to continue to receive compensation while they are participating in medical research projects without the fear of losing compensation. With
your permission, I would like to summarize the basis for our support. In
1998, former Chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee,
Congressman Bob Stump wrote a letter to the Secretary of Veterans
Affairs articulating the committee’s concerns surrounding the way in
which the VA was narrowly interpreting and implementing PL 103-446, The
Persian Gulf War Veterans’ Act, that was enacted to “provide
compensation to Persian Gulf War veterans who suffer disabilities
resulting from illnesses that cannot now be diagnosed or defined, and
for which other causes cannot be identified….” In
his letter, then Chairman Stump expressed his trepidation and
displeasure in that, “[f]or the Department of Veterans Affairs to
adjudicate claims on the basis of a rigid distinction between
diagnosed and undiagnosed conditions is to ignore altogether what we
have come to learn about chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, and
related ill-defined conditions. Continued
reliance on the current regulation (Title 38 CFR section 3.317)
ignores that medicine does not fully understand these conditions and
that physicians may or may not diagnose them.
As is apparent from the literature, they present with many of
the same symptoms which have been described in Persian Gulf veterans
from the earliest reports and which were the subject of Congress’s
effort to service-connect veterans who suffer from symptoms of illness
which cannot be clearly defined.
Thus, for the regulation to effectively rule-out service
connection under that law in any case in which a VA physician happens
to assign a diagnostic label associated with an ill-defined illness,
is to frustrate the purposes of this law, and to raise a serious
question of deprivation of due process.” The
Undersecretary for Benefits’ written response differed markedly from
the Committee’s interpretation. The VA General Counsel upheld that
section “1117 (a) of 38, USC, authorizes service connection on a
presumptive basis only for disability arising in Gulf War veterans due
to undiagnosed illness and may not be construed to authorize
presumptive service connection for any diagnosed illness, regardless
of whether the diagnosis may be characterized as poorly defined.” Further,
this subcommittee held a hearing October 26, 1999, addressing Persian
Gulf War Veterans’ Issues in which this specific topic of disability
compensation for undiagnosed illness was brought up.
When challenged by members of this subcommittee, the
Undersecretary for Benefits reinforced the VA’s previous position
that “the way the law is written, the way your compensation program
is structured, we are granting about as many [claims] as we can.” This
debate between Congress and the VA over the intent of the law has been
going on too long and at the great expense of ill Persian Gulf War
veterans. Therefore, in
order for Congress to fulfill what it considers, and the VFW concurs,
to be the original intent of PL 103-446, legislation such as H.R. 1406
is warranted. Ten years
after the Persian Gulf War, the literature supports that certain
chronic symptoms are more prevalent among Persian Gulf War veterans. We agree with one VA Health official in that the analysis of
“these clusters of symptoms may provide the kind of information that
the committee would like to see inform the compensation process.”
We appreciate the efforts of this Congress and this
subcommittee to act on legislation that would ensure that Persian Gulf
veterans are not denied compensation for undiagnosed illness under PL
103-446 because of an overly narrow interpretation in how their claims
are adjudicated. As
for the measure being proposed that would allow Persian Gulf veterans
to participate in a medical research study without loss of benefits if
their service-connection for undiagnosed illness is suddenly found to
be a condition that has a known diagnosis, it enjoys our full support. For example, there are veterans who are service-connected for “motor neuron disorder, etiology unknown” that could now very well “mask as Amytropic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) or “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.” Certainly, those individuals should have no impediments, either perceived or actual, that would inhibit their participation in an important research program, such as the one being conducted by the Durham VAMC. This legislation would remove the fear of losing their benefits. We
are using this scenario for another very important reason.
During October 26, 1999 Congressional testimony before the
Subcommittee on Benefits, we raised the specter of a disproportionate
number of Gulf War veterans contracting ALS.
In a dialogue with then-Chairman Quinn, we mentioned that ALS
is “one disability that right now seems to … qualify for
presumption of service connection” as a result of service in the
Persian Gulf War area of operations.
We based that supposition on the fact that, at that time,
“the VA has identified 28 Gulf War veterans with ALS where the
expected incident rate should be 27.”
We also further speculated “the 28 is most likely an
under-reported number, mainly because there are a lot of veterans …
[with a present undiagnosed illness of] ‘motor neuron disorder,
etiology unknown’.” We now understand that the
number of Gulf War veterans participating in the Durham study is
around 80. This only leads further credence to our suggestion, during
that October 26, 1999 Congressional testimony that there should
immediately be established a presumption of service connection for ALS
as a result of Persian Gulf in-theater service.
Further, we strongly recommend, Mr. Chairman, that additional
legislation be swiftly introduced and enacted that will accordingly do
so. H.R.
1435--Veterans' Emergency
Telephone Service Act of 2001 This legislation would authorize the Secretary of VA to award grants to companies for the purposes of providing a national toll-free hotline to provide information and assistance to veterans. We support this measure without further comment. We
applaud the intent of this measure to establish a 1-800 line as a
means to expand public access to veterans’ benefits counselors at
the VA. We cannot, however, support this legislation in its current
format. Among
other issues, this legislation may have the unintended consequence of
misdirecting scarce resources. As
presently constructed, this legislation could necessitate the shifting
of personnel and resources from other vital areas.
H.R.
1929--Native American
Veterans Home Loan Act of 2001 We
support this legislation to extend the Native American veteran housing
loan pilot program. Currently,
this program is set to expire at the end of 2001.
This legislation would extend the program an additional four
years until 2005. In
a 1998 report entitled Native American Housing: Homeownership
Opportunities on Trust Lands Are Limited, the GAO determined that
private institutions have rarely supplied home purchasing loans.
GAO concluded, “Federal government assistance is nearly
always required to provide home ownership opportunities to Native
Americans on trust lands.” Although
the report was written in 1998, the situation has not improved for
Native Americans. It is
clear that this program should be extended.
We would also recommend, that this program not only be extended
until 2005, but it should be continued permanently. H.R.
2359--To amend title 38,
United States Code, to authorize the payment of National Service Life
Insurance and United States Government Life Insurance proceeds to an
alternate beneficiary when the first beneficiary cannot be identified,
to improve and extend the Native American veteran housing loan pilot
program, and to eliminate the requirement to provide the Secretary of
Veterans Affairs a copy of a notice of appeal to the Court of Appeals
for Veterans Claims. The VFW supports payment of
insurance proceeds to an alternate beneficiary when the first
beneficiary cannot be located. However,
we recommend that the time limit to pay the first beneficiary
designated by the insured be extended to four years, and if within
that time period, no claim has been filed, the Secretary may, within
five years, designate a person equitably entitled to the proceeds. We also support the extensions
of the Native American veteran housing loan pilot program, for the
reasons above. We further agree with the
proposal to eliminate the requirement for providing a copy of notice
of appeal to the Secretary. H.R.
2361--Veterans' Compensation
Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2001 The
Veterans of Foreign Wars supports the provisions of the Veterans
Compensation Cost-of-Living Adjustment Act of 2001.
This bill increase the rates of compensation for
veterans with service-connected disabilities, and the rates of
dependency and indemnity compensation paid to the survivors of certain
disabled veterans. Although we support this
legislation, we oppose the provisions of Sec 2 (c)(3).
This section requires that any amount that results in something
other than a whole dollar, be reduced to the lowest whole dollar
amount. It is our understanding that
the practice of rounding down to the nearest whole dollar was
introduced following the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation
Act of 1990 (OBRA). While
we certainly understand the importance of the OBRA law in terms of
assisting government managers work towards a balanced budget, it is
the view of the VFW that our veterans have done more than their fair
share to help balance the budget and this need not continue in this
day of budget surpluses. We, therefore, oppose the permanent
extensions of the OBRA provision that permits rounding down
compensation payments. Mr. Chairman, this concludes my testimony. I would be happy to answer any questions that you, or the members of the subcommittee, may have. Back to Witness List |