VCS Advocacy in the News: VA to Automate Claims Payments for Agent Orange
Written by Tim Jones and Jason Grotto
Tuesday, 09 March 2010 21:36
VCS Endorses VA's Bold Action to Reduce Claim Backlog
March 9, 2010, Chicago, Illinois (Chicago Tribune) - Faced with a crushing influx of disability claims from Vietnam War veterans exposed to the toxic defoliant Agent Orange, the Department of Veterans Affairs said Tuesday it would automate part of the cumbersome system that has left many thousands of veterans waiting many months and sometimes years for payments.
The announcement from the VA is a tacit admission that the 80-year-old department is close to being overwhelmed by the volume of claims not only from Vietnam veterans but from those of more recent wars in the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Iraq. The backlog of unresolved disability claims has exceeded 1 million, and the department last year cleared the way for at least 200,000 more when it said it would consider claims of Vietnam veterans suffering from Parkinson's disease, hairy cell leukemia and ischemic heart disease, all of which the have been linked to Agent Orange.
The VA has reached a breaking point in terms of its ability to handle the claims of more than 3 million veterans and this plan would be, at best, an initial step aimed at the most time-consuming claims, according to the department.
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VA to Automate Claims Payments for Agent Orange
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