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Study Tracks Care Of Veterans

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By HOPE YEN, The Associated Press

Published: October 4, 2007

WASHINGTON - Veterans' disability payments should be increased immediately by up to 25 percent as part of a sweeping overhaul designed to compensate for a wounded warrior's lost 'quality of life,' a special commission recommended Wednesday.

The 2 1/2 -year study released by the Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission offers the most comprehensive look yet at the ailing government benefits system that provides millions of injured veterans with a total of about $30 billion a year in payments.

Tracking the findings of recent reports that detailed flaws in veterans care, the 13-member congressional commission concluded in its 544-page report that both the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments fall woefully short in providing adequate mental health care as well as timely and fair disability payments.

Going a step further, the commission also recommended immediate extra payments to injured veterans, many of whom feel they lose out on benefits because of an overly narrow government focus on earnings losses or other reasons.

That could offer veterans some stopgap relief as the Bush administration and Congress consider proposals from an array of task forces and commissions aimed at fixing an outdated system that critics have long said was broken. 'Congress should increase the compensation rates up to 25 percent as an interim and baseline future benefit for loss of quality of life, pending development and implementation of quality of life measures,' the report states. 'In particular, the measure should take into account the quality of life and other non-work-related effects of severe disabilities on veterans and family members.'

A key commission recommendation seeks to bring more fairness to the government system by shifting more responsibility for assigning benefits from the Pentagon to the VA, which tends to rate disabilities higher, even if it ran the risk of putting more strains on an already backlogged VA.

Among the findings:

•Veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder are in danger of slipping through the cracks because there is little coordination among agencies to ensure they get all the services they need so they can return to work.

•After initial screenings, the VA often does not follow up soon enough with re-examinations of veterans with suspected PTSD. The report blamed in part the VA's struggles to reduce its backlog of disability claims, which it said was diverting the agency's attention and resources away from needed PTSD care. The commission called for mandatory re-examinations for PTSD to gauge treatment and other issues every two to three years.

•Benefits should be awarded to veterans for any service-related injury, regardless of whether it was incurred during combat.

•The VA must make better use of technology to reduce its overwhelming delay in distributing disability payments.

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