Chairman Hall, Ranking Member Lamborn and members of the Subcommittee, I thank you for inviting Veterans for Common Sense (VCS) to express our concerns relating to the implementation of the Veterans' Benefits Improvement Act of 2008, Public Law 110-389.

Our comments provide the Subcommittee with a broad review of portions of this law as well as a list of suggestions to improve the delivery of services and benefits for our veterans. 

VCS remains concerned that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) fails to be the strong advocate for their needs, especially on the subject of disability compensation claims.

When there is a failure to implement new laws, then it becomes a true travesty with a high level of frustration among veterans and their families.  A serious problems not generally noticed by the public or press.

The Veterans’ Benefits Improvement Act of 2008 addressed six specific areas of concern relating to the needs of veterans not previously addressed by VA or by existing laws.  The six areas include: Compensation and Pension Matters, Modernization of VA Disability Compensation System, Labor and Education Matters, Insurance Matters, Housing Matters, and Court Matters.

The focus of our comments is limited to the sections dealing with Modernization of VA’s Disability Compensation System.  VCS offers our review and specific suggestions for improvement.   

The section of Modernization of VA Disability Compensation System under Benefit Matters requires VA to develop and implement a temporary disability rating system for veterans’ claims.  This change in VA’s authority was prompted by the advocacy from veteran service organizations and veterans.   We wanted, as a priority, to address VA’s well-documented claims process we find to be lengthy, complex, cumbersome, and adversarial.

The number of new disability compensation benefit requests has predictably grown to more than one million per year.  VA’s error rate is between 20 percent and 40 percent.  And VA’s process takes, on average, between five and six months to produce an initial decision.

The goal behind assigning a temporary rating to specific, pre-screened claims is to reduce the amount of time to process a claim and alleviate the enormous pressure on VA’s overwhelmed adjudication system.

Sadly, after more than one year, VA has failed to enact a temporary rating system.  As an adverse consequence caused by VA, the time to process a claim is now 161 days, and VA expects the amount of time to increase to 190 or longer during 2010.

Some VA regional offices are reporting increased error rates, according to VA’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigations.

VCS remains deeply troubled VA is not responding to the concerns of VSOs, veterans, and Congress to remedy a serious problem even after Congress ordered changes.  In our view, VA appears to have a strong and seemingly deliberate resolve to ignore the crisis and the Congressional mandate.  VA’s actions reveal a disturbing culture of ambivalence, adversity, and hostility toward veterans and the law. 

The new 2008 law also requires reports with specific timelines.  VA’s failure to comply with these sections of a law is impudent and totally unacceptable.  When asked about the lack of compliance with this, and other laws, VA leaders appearing before Congress appeared arrogant in their collective response.  Their actions reveal their belief the rule of law only applies to those laws VA is willing to address, and the other laws can be ignored at their sole and unlimited discretion, without any sanction from Congress or the courts.

VA leaders and staff must be held individually and collectively accountable as would any citizen or agency for their actions and/or inaction in the face of Congressional mandates.  In this instance, and as has been the case for decades, there has been no action taken to hold any person or agency responsible for the problems veterans and families face.   

The use of a temporary disability rating for a claim could be a very real solution for the veterans seeking help.  Our former service members with medical conditions severe enough to warrant a discharge from military service should not have to wait months, and some cases years, to be awarded their earned benefits.

As of June 2009, VA medical professionals have diagnosed more than 134,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  However, VA has only approved half of the veterans’ disability compensation claims – an outrageous outcome in demand of immediate action by Congress and VA.

This law was specifically designed to address this group, as well as other similarly affected cases or classes of people, whom have a service connected illness or injury with a pending request for benefits.  The application of a temporary system to the benefit adjudication process is not intended to circumvent the existing system of verification used in determining qualification for the programs within the VA.  It was anticipated this change would allow a set of circumstances of obvious qualification to be used as a urgently needed substantive substitute for the current lengthy, detailed, step-by-step, task oriented, paper-centric, adversarial, and overly burdensome phases of evidentiary development for veterans’ PTSD claims.

VCS strongly encourages Congress to increase oversight of this law.  We ask Congress to consider possible sanctions for VA leaders who fail to comply with the law.

The changes mandated by the enactment of a bill, such as this one, must have closer scrutiny until such time as the VA can be trusted to act on its own in timely and forthright manner.

Given VA’s past and present history of excessive delays and poor benefits management, we believe there must be an ongoing and vigilant posture by Congress until such time as the claims process is restructured or the number of claims are reduced and processed in a expeditious and accurate manner.

Again, VCS thanks to Chairman Hall and Ranking Member Lamborn for your continued leadership on this issue and your strong dedication to our veterans and their families.