WASHINGTON   –  “Keeping a promise well and keeping a promise eventually are two very different things, but the promise of our nation to the men and women who serve in uniform is one that must be kept better.  The Department of Veterans Affairs is charged with securing the benefits our military members and their families deserve.  Currently, more than a million U.S. vets wait in a backlog of claims that sometimes take years to resolve.

This isn’t right, and something must be done to fix the broken system at the VA.  It’s a problem no one wants our nation to have.  Money and personnel have been thrown at the problem, but we have only seen the backlog grow larger.

It goes without saying that the men and women who serve in our armed services make tremendous sacrifices.  They leave their homes and families, they miss out on holidays and their children’s lives, and they risk life and limb for our freedoms.  Without these Americans on the front lines of conflicts around the world or standing ready here at home, the liberty at the heart of American life would be in grave danger.  The service of our military families is amazing and selfless.

In return, our federal government promises to provide benefits for disabilities connected to military service.  When a servicemember sustains an injury as a result of the work he or she is doing for our military, or when a veteran develops a condition or illness as a result of their previous service, the VA pays a benefit to that individual.  It’s usually not enough to compensate for the incredible service that the veteran performed for our country, but as anyone on a fixed income can tell you, every little bit helps.

So it is a grave disservice to all of those wounded warriors, injured servicemembers and veterans that the backlog of disability claims at the VA exceeded one million last year.  Claims take months to review, and the wait on appeals of cases in which the VA disagrees with the veteran or needs more information?  Those can take years.

Since 2007, the VA has used 4,200 additional claims processors to try to reduce the backlog, but the backlog has only grown.  Claims from veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are overwhelming the system, and a main cause of the backlog of appeals is that so many legitimate claims are being rejected by the VA.  Yet the most recent VA claims are also some of the most serious.  Traumatic brain injury claims are way up, and post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses are considerable among veterans of the most recent U.S. conflicts.

As Congress did for Vietnam veterans who experienced injuries from exposure to Agent Orange, we should dramatically expand acceptance of TBI and PTSD claims at the VA.  The burden of proving these claims to be service-connected should be lifted from those servicemembers with stressful combat experiences. 

If there is one problem the Congress ought to be able to buckle down and solve, without any partisan politics or political posturing, it is this one.  In the committee on which I serve, we can help tailor funding to the VA’s needs, but other committees should conduct detailed inquiries into the VA’s handling of claims and appeals before giving the Americans who selflessly serve our country a VA system on which they can depend and of which the rest of us can be proud.”