April 11, 2013--Our Heroes

Under fire for its growing backlog of disability benefits claims, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs last July set itself a goal: by year’s end, 40 percent of veterans would wait no more than four months for an answer on compensation claims for conditions as serious as post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury.

Instead, things got worse. A Center for Investigative Reporting analysis shows the ranks of veterans facing long waits increased by 18,000 since July 11, when the agency’s undersecretary for benefits, Allison Hickey, told reporters that the delays were unacceptable and pledged that the backlog would begin to shrink “right now.”

By early January, the total number of veterans waiting for all claims had dipped slightly but remained above 900,000, with 630,000–70 percent–waiting longer than four months.

Informed of the missed deadline, VA spokesman Steve Westerfeld amended the goal: the agency, he said in an email, now expects to turn the corner in 2014.

Yet two initiatives to reduce the logjam have failed to produce results so far, according to a CIR analysis of VA data—

Four years after it was widely touted, a $537 million computer system has successfully processed 75 claims. Yes, 75. And an effort to offload claims from the busiest offices has overloaded offices that previously had been performing well.

This is not only unacceptable; it is unconscionable that Barack Obama has presided over this mess. Recall that when he first ran for president he said that doing right by our veterans was his highest priority. Yes, the problem began during George W. Bush’s administration, but it has since gotten progressively worse.

President Obama can make all the speeches he wants to praise our military “heroes”; he can shed tears when meeting with families whose sons, daughters, husbands, and wives have been killed in action; and he can go to Walter Reed Hospital to spend time with the grievously wounded; but this makes his hypocrisy even worse when it comes to doing nothing to fulfill our national promise to those who volunteered to protect us.

When he was first inaugurated, it was announced that Michelle Obama and Jill Biden would devote themselves to advocating for the needs of military families. What have they done to carry out that pledge? 

I see the First and Second Ladies out and about calling for kids to lose weight while appearing on the Ellen DeGeneres Show. Fine, but what I prefer would be to see the president demanding action and personally keeping track of progress or the lack thereof. And if former hospital administrator Michelle Obama wants to do something more serious than hula-hooping and rope-jumping, she should become the president’s full-time representative at the Veterans Administration to make sure this problem gets fixed in months, not years.