Veterans Deserve Better Than Having to Make a Choice! 
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 27, 2018

Members of Congress need to remember that veterans were disabled serving this nation and risked their lives for this nation. Honoring that should never be a "choice" but must be regarded as an obligation!

You'd think they would already know that, but they have not taken action to make sure the VA was able to fulfill their needs.

Congress? Yes! It has been their job since 1946, so if there is anything veterans are not getting, it is their fault. 

As for the "choice" that some members of Congress are pushing, remember, they are the same ones telling civilians how bad our system is. Why on earth would they think it was a good idea to toss veterans out of the VA and send them into this mess?

We seem to have our answer, and it is not a good one. Greedy people want to make a lot of money off our veterans! Tell them we owe veterans, we do not own them. Stop trying to sell them off!

White House meets with veterans groups amid tension over Shulkin, Choice program
CVA is backed by Charles and David Koch, billionaires who seek to roll back government bureaucracy. The group has been one of VA's most vocal critics since the agency's 2014 wait-time scandal was exposed. Its profile has grown during the Trump administration, with one of its former senior advisers, Darin Selnick, serving as veteran affairs adviser inside the White House.

Which is more BS if you look up the history of the VA and backlog of claims. By June of 2009 they were up to a million in the backlog. Go back and check for when Bush was President too, but don't stop there. Veterans have had to come home and protest for promises to be kept since the Revolutionary War!!!!!

VA paid out roughly $1.1 billion to break promises

VA wants $782 million for electronic health records overhaul...still? may have shocked you, but the GAO has an even bigger shocker.

The Government Accountability Office found that VA paid out roughly $1.1 billion between fiscal 2011 and 2016 to contractors working to update the agency’s outdated Veterans Information Systems and Technology Architecture system. The agency has relied on the platform to manage health records for its 9 million beneficiaries since the 1980s.

The department gave the bulk of the billion to 15 contractors—one of which is getting a sole-source $10 billion contract to try again.
NextgovJack CorriganDecember 8, 2017 
The Veterans Affairs Department wasted more than a billion dollars over six years attempting to upgrade its electronic health records system before scrapping the projects in June, according to a congressional watchdog.
Fifteen individual contractors received about two-thirds of the money spent during that period, and the remaining funds were distributed among 123 other firms. The VA has since announced plans to give one of those 15 major contractors, Cerner Corp., another crack at modernizing the agency’s health IT with a sole-source $10 billion contract to rebuild its medical record management platform.
read more here

And what did veterans get out of all that money? Backlog of claims, missing records and misery!

What they sure didn't get was an apology from members of Congress.

"The VA has betrayed our veterans" But members of Congress did it first

OMG! I need to stay out of social media. Yet again I was reading about someone ignoring the fact that all the problems the OEF and OIF veterans have with their claims and treatment from the VA is new. 

"The VA has betrayed our veterans." Paul Sullivan Veterans For Common Sense said after his group filed a lawsuit because veteran were waiting too long for medical care and compensation. Here is a little history lesson, because if we ignore it, nothing will change. 

Injured Iraq War Vets Sue VA

Frustrated by delays in health care, injured Iraq war veterans accused VA Secretary Jim Nicholson in a lawsuit of breaking the law by denying them disability pay and mental health treatment. 

The class-action lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, seeks broad changes in the agency as it struggles to meet growing demands from veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Suing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, it charges that the VA has failed warriors on numerous fronts. It contends the VA failed to provide prompt disability benefits, failed to add staff to reduce wait times for medical care and failed to boost services for post-traumatic stress disorder. 

The lawsuit also accuses the VA of deliberately cheating some veterans by allegedly working with the Pentagon to misclassify PTSD claims as pre-existing personality disorders to avoid paying benefits. The VA and Pentagon have generally denied such charges.

"When one of our combat veterans walks into a VA hospital, then they must see a doctor that day," said Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, which filed the lawsuit. "When a war veteran needs disability benefits because he or she can't work, then they must get a disability check in a few weeks."

You may think that just happened. You need to think again because if you just started to pay attention to all of this, you're wrong. That report came out July 23, 2007. There was a budget crisis.

Yet, the lawsuit says, Nicholson and other officials still insisted on a budget in 2005 that fell $1 billion short, and they made "a mockery of the rule of law" by awarding senior officials $3.8 million in bonuses despite their role in the budget foul-up.

And while our veterans and families were suffering after decades of promises from members of Congress, they never once apologized for any of it.

"The performance of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has contributed substantially to our sense of national shame," the opinion from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals read.Nicholson abruptly announced last week he would step down by Oct. 1 to return to the private sector. 

He has repeatedly defended the agency during his 2½-year tenure while acknowledging there was room for improvement.More recently, following high-profile suicide incidents in which families of veterans say the VA did not provide adequate care, Nicholson pledged to add mental health services and hire more suicide-prevention coordinators.

A year later the VA Budget was $3 Billion short! Paul Sullivan continued the fight and was demanding some accountability when more veterans were committing suicide while waiting in a backlog of 600,000. Veterans were telling employees they were suicidal and were put on a waiting list.  

Now that may seem as if that was new but it happened to Vietnam veterans in the 80's and 90's. Not that it mattered since Congress did nothing about it. After all, when it reached the point where President Bush had to fight against veterans in court, no one put the blame on Congress.

During an interview given in November for the original CBS story, Dr. Katz told reporter Armen Keteyian that "There is no epidemic in suicide in the VA, but suicide is a major problem." When pressed for an answer to explain the VA's inability to come up with any suicide statistics among veterans, Katz replied "That research is ongoing." 

However, "After a public records request, the VA provided CBS News with data that showed there were a total of 790 attempted suicides by VA patients in the entire year of 2007." This number does not match up at all with a private email sent by Dr. Katz to a colleague in which he states that the VA has identified "about 1000 suicide attempts a month in patients we see at are medical facilities," a far cry from his public estimate of 790 a year.

PS, that really hasn't changed either. As you can see, not much has changed.

POTUS Is Too Old To Not Know Better

When Does Accountability Actually Happen?
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 24, 2017

"Responding to an Obama-era scandal in which veterans died waiting for doctor’s appointments" is just too sickening to be funny at this point. 

President Donald Trump displays the “Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017” after signing in the East Room of the White House, Friday, June 23, 2017

Responding to an Obama-era scandal in which veterans died waiting for doctor’s appointments, Mr. Trump said the Department of Veterans Affairs Accountability and Whistleblower Protection Act of 2017 will “make sure that the scandal we suffered so recently never, ever happens again.”

“What happened was a national disgrace, and yet some of the employees involved remained on the payrolls,” Mr. Trump said. “Our veterans have fulfilled their duty to this nation, and now we must fulfill our duty to them.”

Gee that sounds really good and what happened with the last President was really bad. It sounds that way but it is pure political bullshit!

History has shown that none of this is new but it also proved that all the speeches about them giving a crap in the first place, have produced too little changes for the better.

Last week we had to battle to make sure that senior veterans did not get hit by the "unemployable" portion of their comp being cut. Well, veterans actually won that part because folks paid attention and fought back. The problem is, it wasn't the first time veterans had to fight for what they should have been able to count on.

Here is a little blast from the past
This is from just before the last President took the oath in 2009

Wounded Warriors in Beetlejuice altered universe

Getting benefits for post-traumatic stress, for losing flexibility, for being in the kind of shape in which you want to work but can't do what you once did — these are the kinds of injuries backlogging the system. 

"We're combating an archaic VA system," said LeJeune, who has been in contact with the state's congressional delegation about his concerns. 

Congress introduced a bill signed into law in December 2007 that increased veterans' funding to help reduce the 400,0000 backlogged claims and 177-day average wait, according to information from U.S. Rep. Carol Shea-Porter's office. 

"It has become an adversarial system," said Shea-Porter. "It certainly isn't supposed to be that way. The frustration we're hearing is accurate. Congress is aware of it. Part of the problem is, we didn't have resources; we were forced to make these terrible unfair decisions." 

LeJeune has been fighting to get his disability rating at 100 percent. It is now at 90 percent. 

"Two-thousand seven hundred dollars a month total disability," Worrall said. "That ain't a lot to live on, (along with) Social Security. I used to make $85,000 a year on the job. I'll be fine because I've planned for retirement. My ability to make that kind of money is gone. What happens to these kids who never had a career? You're going to make them live on three grand a month?" 

That cut was nothing new. Politicians have been pulling that stunt for decades. Veterans had to fight to stop Congress from cutting $75 million from homeless veterans. Oh, almost forgot to mention that was back in 2011.

Then again, historical facts hardly ever get mentioned anymore when the press does a report that should actually matter enough for us to get the whole truth. Messy business telling the truth is. When you are up against popular folks telling you what they want you to know, they somehow manage to trip you up with nonsense.


Time for history lesson  
Am J Psychiatry 1991; 148:586-591 Copyright © 1991 by American Psychiatric Association
Suicide and guilt as manifestations of PTSD in Vietnam combat veterans
RESULTS: Nineteen of the 100 veterans had made a postservice suicide attempt, and 15 more had been preoccupied with suicide since the war. Five factors were significantly related to suicide attempts: guilt about combat actions, survivor guilt, depression, anxiety, and severe PTSD. Logistic regression analysis showed that combat guilt was the most significant predictor of both suicide attempts and preoccupation with suicide. For a significant percentage of the suicidal veterans, such disturbing combat behavior as the killing of women and children took place while they were feeling emotionally out of control because of fear or rage.

CONCLUSIONS: In this study, PTSD among Vietnam combat veterans emerged as a psychiatric disorder with considerable risk for suicide, and intensive combat-related guilt was found to be the most significant explanatory factor. These findings point to the need for greater clinical attention to the role of guilt in the evaluation and treatment of suicidal veterans with PTSD. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/148/5/586


Although the link is from 1991 it applies even more now.

From Senator Akaka 2006

In addition, a March 20, 2005, article in the Los Angles Times pointed out how concerned veterans' advocates and even some VA psychiatrists are with VA's handling of PTSD services, saying VA hospitals are "flirting with disaster." The article highlighted the situation at the VA Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System, specifically the Los Angeles VA hospital, which last year closed its psychiatric emergency room. A decade ago, VA hospitals in Los Angeles had rooms to treat 450 mentally ill patients each day. After a series of cutbacks and consolidations, however, the main hospital can now accommodate only 90 veterans overnight in its psychiatric wards. During the same 10-year period, the overall number of mental health patients treated by the VA Greater Los Angeles increased by about 28 percent, to 19,734 veterans in 2004. Mr. President, if this is how VA handles PTSD care for our veterans at the nation's largest VA hospital, how does that bode for the rest of the nation?

VA Cuts 2006
WASHINGTON, May 27 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Budget Resolution passed by both houses of Congress will result in staff reductions in every VA Medical Center at a most inauspicious time—as veterans return from the war in Iraq and as increasing numbers of veterans need care from the system, said Thomas H. Corey, National President of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA).
The impact will be significant among those returning troops who suffer from mental health issues such as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), those who have sustained loss of limbs, and other serious injuries.

Military Suicide 2005
Gordon Smith: "It's a tragedy to ever lose a soldier for any cause, but it just seems extra cruel when the cause is suicide. They're defending our country, America's interests and if we can't give them mental health assistance when they're in harm's way, we're really falling down on the job."Preventing suicide is a very personal issue for Oregon Senator Gordon Smith -- his own son Garrett committed suicide. 88 active duty soldiers killed themselves in 2005, a number that was up 13% over 2003 and more than 70% over 2001.

PTSD CASES LEAP FAR BEYOND VA ESTIMATE 2006

VA officials agreed that the earlier estimate of 2,900 new cases for all of fiscal 2006 was an “underestimate.” Indeed, it was even lower than the 3,600 cases the VA diagnosed in the last three months of fiscal 2005.

VA Budget request in 2006

"This budget request indeed has glitter," Bock said. "But I am not yet sure how much of it is gold. It is a budget request that appears to table long-needed construction dollars, particularly in the area of grants for state veterans homes and leaves CARES (Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services) under-funded again. It takes a $13 million bite out of VA research. It also fails to provide sufficient funds for staffing and training in the Veterans Benefits Administration to address a claims backlog fast approaching one million."

Bock said he sees the estimate of 109,000 new VA patients in 2007 from operations in Iraq and Afghanistan as a step toward better forecasting. "The under-estimated number of VA patients from the ongoing war contributed mightily to the $1.5 billion budget shortfall for VA health care in 2005," Bock said. "This appears to address that." He also applauded a requested increase in mental-health-care funding, from $2.8 billion to $3.2 billion.


Wait time to process claims in 2006 145 days
Although the Bush administration expects the backlog to continue rising, its 2007 budget proposal calls for decreasing the staff that directly handles such cases - 149 fewer workers, from the current year's 6,574.

The VA has long wanted to reduce its backlog to less than 250,000 claims. But the department's most recent projections have it rising to nearly 400,000 by the end of 2007.

Those are just a few reports from my old site. You know what is on this one.


Wait time 180 days in 2008 and 69,000 veterans waited more than 30 days for an appointment.

“For the 400,000 veterans, including combat-wounded vets, who are having to wait too long to have their [health] benefits cases reviewed, this bill means over 1,800 new VA caseworkers to reduce the unacceptable delays in receiving earned benefits,” Edwards said. “For veterans with traumatic brain injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health care issues, and lost limbs, this bill means renewed hope to rebuild their lives.”

President Bush signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2008 today, handing over an extra $3.7 billion to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Bush had to sign the act by Jan. 18, or VA would have lost the promised extra funding, which will be used to hire and train people to process the backlog of more than 600,000 benefits claims, said Dave Autry, spokesman for Disabled American Veterans. Some of the money also will go toward medical research for conditions such as traumatic brain injuries. 

That was reported on Army Times January 17, 2008 and the link is still on Wounded Times

Veterans dying waiting for care in the news

29 Patients at Marion VA January 2008 and there were more, and more, and more.

Ok, and now for accountability: Exactly when does that happen?

Hint: It won't happen until we actually pay attention enough to know when what happened and who did it first!

Shame on us for creating a subclass of disabled veterans!

Stop Tolerating Veterans Being Pushed Back Into Subclass
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
June 14, 2017

Remember Memorial Day weekend? There was a lot going on especially for the majority of our veterans. There were lots of ceremonies around the country showing how much the American people care at the same time in Washington, news was getting through the crowds gathered that senior veterans were once again being subjected to subclass veteran status.

The budget submitted by POTUS called for senior veterans to take a huge cut in their disability checks. Why? Because they are collecting Social Security? 

Ok, then no one bothered to explain to these veterans why "permanent and total" meant nothing. After all, since most disabled veterans were receiving the equivalent of 100% with the "unemployable" part, they did not bother to clog up the system to get their service connected rating upgraded. 

After all, they knew about the backlog of claims the younger veterans were facing, much the same way they did when no one cared about them, so they let it go.

Most of these senior veterans were unable to work for a decade, or in many cases, decades, meaning they were not able to pay into Social Security. Ever wonder what that does to the amount of money they pay?

This is a chart from Social Security

This is the Compensation rate from the Department of Veterans Affairs

Most stopped working well before the age of 62 because they couldn't, not because they didn't want to.

Retirement is a dangerous time for them instead of their golden years.

Vietnam Veterans Experience PTSD in Retirement for the First Time 
WGCU NPR News 
By MICHAEL HIRSH
MAY 30, 2017 
"Vets have more time to think. They may have been using work as a way to cope. They were self-medicating by turning into workaholics. Now, that coping mechanism is no longer available, and any number of events can trigger symptoms. Even something as simple as going to an Asian restaurant, even though the vet may have eaten at the restaurant throughout their working life."

It is also clear when you ignore all the "awareness raisers" running around the country talking about veterans committing suicide. Aside from getting the numbers wrong, they totally ignore the fact that 65% of the suicides they know about were veterans over the age of 50!

"Approximately 65 percent of all Veterans who died from suicide in 2014 were 50 years of age or older."

Now you can no longer ignore any of this when you hear about what this plan to cut their compensation is doing to them! We have created a subclass of veterans. 

While they do not want to see anything taken away from younger veterans, imagine what it is like for them to fact this, on top of everything else! 

Caregiver stipend is not for them. It is only for younger veterans even though their "caregivers" managed to do it all with absolutely no help or recognition at all. 

The charities popping up all over the country and handing disabled veterans free homes, are not doing it for them, nor have they ever done it, yet now these veterans are worried about losing the homes they struggled to get and keep.

They have waited longer, fought harder for all generations to make sure no generation ever left another one behind, but that is exactly what we just did to them. If you think a coin, a lunch saying "Welcome Home" will make up for any of this, you are pretty much out of your mind.

How about you actually do something for them? One more thing to consider is that these veterans have lived for decades after facing combat, yet after these decades, the war they had to fight alone at home all this time is still trying to destroy them!

Problems With the VA, What Congress Knew--And Let Happen

There are a lot of stories in the news lately that make it all seem like new problems. None of them are new and here's just a sample of proof to let you know that none of this was taken care of when it needed to be, so it all got worse for our veterans.

2007 Veterans-Suicide and What Congress Knew

The hearing was prompted in part by a CBS news story in November on suicides in the veteran population that put last year’s number of veteran suicides at over 6,000. VA officials refuted that number, questioning its validity. But a VA Inspector General report released in May of 2007 found that as many as 5,000 veterans commit suicide a year—nearly 1,000 of whom are receiving VA care at the time.

2007 PTSD VA Claims and What Congress Knew

The senators also requested a detailed report on how the military monitors other psychological injuries. Recent media accounts indicate that the number of service members seeking care for PTSD from the Veterans Administration (VA) increased 70% over a 12-month period, or an increase of some 20,000 cases. In addition, reports of the total number of cases of PTSD treatment at the VA since 2001 – 50,000 cases – far exceed the number of wounded documented by the Pentagon.

2008 Backlog of Claims and What Congress Knew 

Bush had to sign the act by Jan. 18, or VA would have lost the promised extra funding, which will be used to hire and train people to process the backlog of more than 600,000 benefits claims, said Dave Autry, spokesman for Disabled American Veterans. Some of the money also will go toward medical research for conditions such as traumatic brain injuries.

And this which ties into the claim about the VA and DOD linking up data.

Peake wants to reduce wait times from roughly 180 days to 145 days by the start of next year. He cited aggressive efforts to hire staff, noting the VA will have 3,100 new staff by 2009. VA also is working to get greater online access to Pentagon medical information that he said will allow staff to process claims faster and move toward a system of electronic filing of claims.
Peake promised to “virtually eliminate” the current list of 69,000 veterans who have waited more than 30 days for an appointment to get VA medical care. Such long waits runs counter to department policy, and a group of Iraq war veterans have filed a lawsuit alleging undue delays. He said VA plans to open 64 new community-based outpatient clinics this year and 51 next year to improve access to health care in rural areas.
“We will take all measures necessary to provide them with timely benefits and services, to give them complete information about the benefits they have earned through their courageous service, and to implement streamlined processes free of bureaucratic red tape,” Peake said in testimony prepared for a House Veterans Affairs Committee hearing Thursday. 

2008 Deaths at VA Hospitals and What Congress Knew

The VA will help affected families file administrative claims under the VA's disability compensation program, he said. Families also could sue.
...........The VA investigation found that at least nine deaths between October 2006 and March last year were "directly attributable" to substandard care at the Marion hospital, which serves veterans from southern Illinois, southwestern Indiana and western Kentucky.
Kussman declined to identify those cases by patient or doctor, though Rep. Jerry Costello, an Illinois Democrat, said those nine deaths were linked to two surgeons he did not name.
Of an additional 34 cases the VA investigated, 10 patients who died received questionable care that complicated their health, Kussman said. Investigators could not determine whether the care actually caused the deaths.

2008 Female Veterans and What Congress Knew

“Women who served this country in uniform -- whether veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, the current Global War on Terror or peacetime service -- have earned our respect and thanks,” said Dr. James B. Peake, Secretary of Veterans Affairs. “They have also earned the full range of VA programs offered by a grateful nation.”
Secretary Peake also announced the Fourth National Summit on Women Veterans Issues to be held from June 20 – 22 in Washington D.C. The Summit will offer attendees an opportunity to enhance future progress on women veterans issues, with sessions specifically for the Reserve and National Guard, information on military sexual trauma and readjustment issues, after the military veteran resources and many more programs and exhibits.

By the way, if any member of Congress dares to suggest sending veterans away from the VA, remind them, if they cared, they would have done their jobs in the first place. Or actually, second place, considering veterans did their jobs first and ended up disabled risking their lives!

Villain and Vultures Want Veterans To Pay for Having Served?

POTUS wants to take away something that veterans were promised going back to WWII. Congress wants to pretend they had nothing to do with the mess at the VA, also going back to WWII. With all the crap in the news, it is a good time for a little history lesson. This way, no one can pretend they actually intended to keep their promises to our veterans.

First, if you think Concerned Veterans of America is actually putting veterans first, they aren't.

CVA wants more aggressive cuts to the fiscal 2018 VA budget

WASHINGTON — Like other advocacy groups, Concerned Veterans for America have problems with the president’s proposed Veterans Affairs budget. 
But unlike most of the veterans community, they think it doesn’t cut enough. 
The conservative group, which has ties to prominent Republican donors and several members of President Donald Trump’s administration, is releasing a policy memo this week calling for more belt tightening and increased scrutiny of the president’s $186.5 billion budget proposal, which has already drawn criticism from groups like the American Legion for too many trims. 
“We recommend that Congress aggressively seek out more savings within the VA’s budget, especially in its construction, medical facility operations, personnel, and medical compliance accounts,” the document states.

The cut against older veterans announced right before Memorial Day and all the speeches made about how much our veterans mean.

History lesson on the VA and the growing number of veterans seeking care.

On Feb. 1, 1946, Bradley reported that the VA was operating 97 hospitals with a total bed capacity of 82,241 patients. Hospital construction then in progress projected another 13,594 beds. Money was available for another 12,706 beds with the construction of 25 more hospitals and additions to 11 others. But because of the demobilization, the total number of veterans would jump to more than 15 million within a few months. The existing VA hospitals were soon filled to capacity, and there were waiting lists for admission at practically all hospitals. In addition, there were 26,057 nonservice-connected cases on the hospital waiting list. Until more VA hospitals could be opened, the Navy and Army both made beds available. To handle the dramatic increase in veterans claims, VA Central Office staff was increased in two years from 16,966 to 22,008. In the same period, field staff, charged with providing medical care, education benefits, disability payments, home loans and other benefits, rose from 54,689 employees to 96,047. When he left in 1947, Bradley reported that the VA had established 13 branch offices and 14 regional offices, and set up 721 contact offices. He noted that 29 new hospitals had been opened

Yes, it all happened before and considering 2 wars were added to the list of other war veterans in the backlog of claims, waiting for care as elected officials were attempting to push privatizing the VA, it makes sense the mess got worse. After all, if they had actually honored their promises to veterans, they'd never be able to get rid of it.

Currently, veterans eligible for the program have a 60 to 100 percent disability rating through the VA and are unable to secure a job because of their service-connected disability. The program allows them to get paid at the highest compensation rate. For 2017, the monthly rate for a 100 percent disabled veteran living alone is $2,915 per month. 

And this "unemployable benefit" goes back!

The benefit was a safety net for veterans who couldn't work because of health problems that began in the military and whose disability ratings, based on a formula combining their conditions, fell shy of 100%.

In 1945, as disabled World War I veterans continued to fall out of the workforce, the VA adopted a regulation ensuring eligibility to veterans of any age. That decision underlies much of the current growth.

More than half the 137,343 veterans approved since 2010 were 65 or older, including 13,684 who were at least 75, according to VA statistics.

The largest share served in the Vietnam era. Many joined the disability system over the last decade as the VA expanded eligibility for PTSD and diabetes, heart disease, prostate cancer and other common conditions on the presumption they were caused by exposure to the herbicide Agent Orange, used to clear jungle vegetation in the war. 

Once in the system, veterans are eligible for the unemployability benefit if their ailments are deemed too severe for them to work and their disability ratings reach a certain threshold, usually 60% or 70% depending on their mix of conditions. 

Pretty much sums up what this is all about. It is about paying to send veterans into private healthcare and treat them like everyone else. You know, the same healthcare they complain about being oh so bad for the rest of us! All these years of them saying how they want to kill "Obamacare" but now it is good enough to send veterans into that mess? Top that off with the fact that now they want our senior veterans to pay for what they do not want and you have a villain and a bunch of vultures!

Claim backlog not new and Congress promised to take care of it...New York Times reported this in 2007,

The agency’s new plan to hire at least 150 new appeals judges to whittle down the backlog, which has soared to 755,000 from 311,000 in 2000, will require $100 million more than the president requested this year and still more in the future. The plan has been delayed by the standoff between Congress and the White House over domestic appropriations.

By the following year, there was this report from Army Times

Peake wants to reduce wait times from roughly 180 days to 145 days by the start of next year. He cited aggressive efforts to hire staff, noting the VA will have 3,100 new staff by 2009. VA also is working to get greater online access to Pentagon medical information that he said will allow staff to process claims faster and move toward a system of electronic filing of claims.
Peake promised to “virtually eliminate” the current list of 69,000 veterans who have waited more than 30 days for an appointment to get VA medical care. 

And that was followed up by a backlog of claims by GovExec

VBA's pending compensation and claims backlog stood at 816,211 as of January 2008, up 188,781 since 2004, said Kerry Baker, associate legislative director of the Disabled Veterans of America, during a Wednesday hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense.
Baker said VBA must have the funds necessary to upgrade its IT infrastructure to handle the backlog and a growing caseload. Anything short of an increase is "a recipe for failure," he added.
Carl Blake, national legislative director for the Paralyzed Veterans of America, said VBA needed $121 million in its fiscal 2009 budget for its information technology. According to VA budget documents, VBA requested an IT budget of $109.6 million for its compensation and benefits programs, down $23.8 million from $133.4 million in 2008. VA requested an overall 2009 IT budget of $2.53 billion in 2009, up from $2.15 billion in fiscal 2008, with the largest portion earmarked for the Veterans Health Administration. 

As foolish as it was to actually trust the press to get any of this right and put it all together so that all veterans knew exactly what Congress thinks of them, now is the time for them to make it up to all of our veterans and families!

Over the weekend, I'll do the same with the suicide numbers. Oh wait, I don't really have to since I already wrote a book about it!

Top Customer Reviews5.0 out of 5 starsAwesome bookByJames G. Youngon May 14, 2013Format: Kindle Edition|Verified PurchaseIf you have not read anything Kathie has written you are at a major disadvantage when discussing PTSD. She has a first hand account of dealing with this herself as the wife of a Nam vet, but then devoting her life to understanding the dilemma and helping others understand it as well. I consider Kathie a highly knowledgable contact with regards to this subject and have consulted her many times.
Kathie truely has the inside pulse in understanding the issues here, the denial of our govenment and the failures of the administrations to come to grips with how best to deal with it. Our govenment is trying to find a series of magic bullets (medications) that some practioners hand out like candy because they have nothing else to give and lack the compassion needed.
Straighforward, if you haven't read this book or spoken to Kathie you are at a major disadvantage. Great Book Kathie, well written and researched, should be made mandatory reading for anyone dealing with or discussing PTSD. ....

Reporter Took Powerful PTSD Story on Female Veterans and Blew it!

When Reporters Care About PTSD Veterans, But Not Enough
Combat PTSD
Kathie Costos
May 27, 2017

Reporters didn't care over three decades ago, when I got into all of this. I never read about them unless it was a report on one of our veterans getting arrested. 
My research was about Vietnam veterans coming home and suffering. Soon I discovered that no wound of war was new. All generations came home and were infiltrated by what they thought they left behind them.

I tired to get several to let the country know what was happening to veterans and their families. None of them were interested. One reporter told me it sounded like "sour grapes" after I told him about PTSD and how claims were being turned down and veterans were being turned away from the VA. Back then there was a huge backlog of claims but the VA had started to work on PTSD.

Now there are reporters all over the country trying to get this right. They have been failing because they are outnumbered by other reporters doing a simple Google search to find the easiest answer on what our veterans face after surviving combat.

Margie Fishman found an amazing female veteran with a powerful story to tell. She wrote the article as if she cares, and it is a good story to read once you get past this part where she blew it.

Fishman wrote

"An estimated 22 veterans commit suicide each day, or one every 65 minutes, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs."

WRONG Here is the link to the VA Suicide report from 2012 she is still using and within it, the VA had a warning about using the "22 a day" but the headline was grabbed and even I believe it until I found the actual report and read it.

"The estimated number of Veterans who have died from suicide is based on data obtained from 21 states and has been calculated using service history as reported on death certificates. An assessment of Veteran status on Washington State death certificates identified a measurable amount of error among those with history of U.S. military service. Therefore, estimates of the number of Veterans who have died from suicide each day based on proxy report of history of U.S. military service should be interpreted with caution."

WHY 

Limitations of Existing Data Currently available data include information on suicide mortality among the population of residents in 21 states. Veteran status in each of these areas is determined by a single question asking about history of U.S. military service. Information about history of military service is routinely obtained from family members and collected by funeral home staff and has not been validated using information from the DoD or VA. Further, Veteran status was not collected by each state during each year of the project period. Appendix B provides a listing of the availability of Veteran identifiers by state and year. Further, this report contains information from the first 21 states to contribute data for this project and does not include some states, such as California and Texas, with larger Veteran populations. Information from these states has been received and will be included in future reports. 

PLUS, forgotten in all the reporting is that it is older veterans who need the most help but are getting none of the attention from reporters.

Specifically, more than 69% of all Veteran suicides were among those aged 50 years and older, compared to approximately 37% among those who were not identified as Veterans. 

ANOTHER FACTOR OVERLOOKED AND UNDER REPORTED ON

We are also in the peak seasons for veterans committing suicide. 

There also appears to be a seasonal trend with more suicide events in the spring and summer months noted in 2010 and 2011.

 Fishman wrote this part and got it right

"Female veterans commit suicide at nearly six times the rate as other women (they're 33 percent more likely to use a gun than overdose on pills). They are also two-to-four times more likely than civilian women to be homeless, according to federal statistics."

BUT LEFT OUT
This is from the LA Times Suicide rate of female military veterans is called 'staggering' by Alan Zarembo.

The rates are highest among young veterans, the VA found in new research compiling 11 years of data. For women ages 18 to 29, veterans kill themselves at nearly 12 times the rate of nonveterans.In every other age group, including women who served as far back as the 1950s, the veteran rates are between four and eight times higher, indicating that the causes extend far beyond the psychological effects of the recent wars.

So if anyone asks, I'm glad reporters care now, but greatly saddened by the fact too many just don't seem to care enough.

For Delaware female vets, every day a struggle
The News Journal
Margie Fishman
May 26, 2017

This Memorial Day, Petters wants you to remember the soldiers who died on and off the battlefield.

"Our American Hero" wears military fatigues, an M16 and a perma-smile next to two emblems of freedom — a waving American flag and the Statue of Liberty's blazing torch.

Delaware Air Force veteran Kim Petters sneers at the framed photograph, which she retrieved from her garage at a reporter's request. Her photo album, capturing a decade of service, is missing in action.

Since retiring from the military in 2012, it's been a daily struggle for the Dover mother of four, who feels robbed of her freedom by a war she still doesn't fully understand.

"We went in looking for weapons of mass destruction, right?" the petite brunette grumbles. "Did we find any?"

Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, Petters can't pass an American flag in a flower bed without her mind racing to flag-draped coffins. She thrashes so hard during intense nightmares that her husband must hold her legs down.

"All I can see is 20 bodies," says the former medical administrator, who was tasked with shepherding fallen soldiers home during the Iraq War. "I can almost smell it again."
read more here

This video is from 2006 and re-uploaded on PTSD and what it looks like.

VA could feel chill of Trump’s hiring freeze

This is from San Antonio Express News VA could feel chill of Trump’s hiring freeze, by Martin Kuz. It really points out some facts that most people to not know. Notice the date of of the backlogs?

Hundreds of thousands of veterans had endured a similar ordeal since the mid-1990s as they waited years to obtain disability and pension benefits from the VA. The delays led to former President Barack Obama directing the agency to streamline the benefits process and hire 2,500 new personnel to assess compensation claims. The changes reduced the case backlog from 611,000 in 2013 to under 100,000 two years later.

But that progress now appears in jeopardy. President Donald Trump has imposed a federal hiring freeze that prevents the VA’s benefits agency from filling open positions, creating concern among veterans and advocates in South Texas that the backlog could swell again.

“A few years ago, getting your benefits was like a lottery system,” said Villanueva, who lives in San Antonio and supports his wife and three children with his $3,000 monthly disability payment. “You had no idea when you would hear back from the VA.”

It is true and something that keeps getting missed in most of the recent reporting. Veterans have been dealing with all of this for decades. Congress, with jurisdiction over the VA since 1946, has never once apologized to veterans for not doing their jobs.

The VA’s acting secretary at the time, Robert Snyder, moved quickly to exempt jobs that the agency “deems necessary for public safety.” The action shields 36,000 out of 48,000 open positions in the VA’s national workforce of 360,000, including physicians, nurses, behavioral health providers and other front-line medical staff.

The Veterans Benefits Administration had almost 500 job vacancies in its 56 regional offices as of March 1. None qualify for exempt status, and while VA Secretary David Shulkin has talked of protecting more positions, advocates fear the agency will remain shorthanded.

Easy on this part. The VA already had a backlog before troops sent to Afghanistan and the into Iraq created even more disabled veterans. Congress didn't seem to think mobilizing the VA to prepare them should be on the to-do-list.

Felix Rodriguez, the assistant veterans service officer for Hidalgo County in Weslaco, considers that drop the strongest argument to exempt the agency’s administrative positions.

“We’re talking about quality of life for veterans,” he said. “For some of them, their VA benefits are their only source of income. They can’t afford to wait. Without that money, they start slipping down.”

And yes, that part also keeps getting missed.
Click the link and discover more of what veterans are dealing with.

Historical Facts on VA Claims Prove Neither Party Delivered

Right and Left Stuck Veterans With Agony
Combat PTSD Wounded Times
Kathie Costos
February 5, 2016

If you think this is anything new, it isn't.

"The VA’s handling of benefits claims has been the focus of sharp criticism for the past decade. The agency has struggled to respond to growing numbers of disability applications from veterans returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan."

That came from a Newsday article about a Gulf War veterans fighting for his claim to be approved and getting help for PTSD.

Veterans have been fighting for this country and fighting the government since the Revolutionary War.

A significant factor working against Revolutionary War veterans was their small number. The Continental Army never comprised more than 30,000 officers and men. The vast majority of Americans had nothing personal at stake in the plight of veterans after the war. Citizens who did feel the matter personally were unable to do much about it. American politics in the 18th and early 19th centuries was controlled by a small elite group of property holders. Most of the men who had filled the ranks of Washington’s army couldn’t even vote.By the time the Civil War began, the situation was quite different. The 1820s rise of Andrew Jackson and his populist democracy, which made voters of almost all adult white males, had created a Congress far more susceptible to popular pressure. The scale of the Civil War, in which more than 2.2 million men served the Union and more than 1 million served the Confederacy, left few families untouched.

During the Reagan Administration, there was a backlog of claims. 

These cutbacks would be accompanied by a shrinking of V.A. hospital staffs and other health-care resources for veterans. The number of Veterans Administration employees working on medical care programs would decline, under the President's budget proposal, from 193,941 in the fiscal year 1986, which began Oct. 1, to 185,039 in 1987 and 171,674 in the fiscal year 1991, the documents show.

During the Bush Administration there was a backlog of claims. During the Clinton Administration there was a backlog of claims. 

These problems remain decades later. According to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), there are almost 300,000 veterans homeless on any given night across the US. Veterans of the Gulf War and Iraq, like their Vietnam brethren, are fighting today for recognition of their medical maladies, such as Gulf War Syndrome, which includes symptoms of fatigue, skin rash, headache, muscle and joint pain, memory loss and difficulty concentrating, shortness of breath, sleep problems, gastrointestinal problems and chest pain. PTSD also continues to be a serious problem. From 1999 to 2007, the number of veterans receiving disability compensation for PTSD increased from 120,000 to more than 280,500.

During the other Bush Administration there was a backlog of claims

Coming on the heels of the discovery that veterans' benefit claims forms may have been shredded in regional offices nationwide, two veterans' organizations have filed a lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs. They're attacking a related and, they say, similarly egregious problem: the time it takes for the VA to make a decision on a disability claim.Clogged with more than 600,000 pending claims, the VA takes an average of more than six months to make a decision—70 percent more time than it took four years ago, the claimants allege. That means that disabled veterans can't access their disability pay when they're transitioning back into civilian society and need help the most, say critics.If the claim is denied, an appeal takes even longer—an average of four years. Some stretch into decades. In comparison, private healthcare groups usually process claims in less than three months, including appeals.In response, the Vietnam Veterans of America and the Veterans of Modern Warfare filed a preliminary injunction in a D.C. district court today against the VA. The two organizations, which together represent about 60,000 veterans, are asking for the VA to adhere to a time limit: 90 days to decide initial claims for disability benefits and 180 days to resolve appeals.

Just as there was during the Obama Administration. 

“Part of it is all these new veterans in the system who came in – Agent Orange, PTSD. It means a lot more claims and, despite additional resources, it’s resulted in longer waits,” Obama said last month at the Disabled American Veterans’ annual convention. “And that’s been unacceptable – unacceptable to me, unacceptable to Secretary Shinseki.”At of the beginning of August, VA reported about 780,000 claims are pending, with about 500,000 of those claims in its inventory over 125 days.

What they all have in common is that Congress, with jurisdiction over all of it, promised to fix the problems veterans faced, but failed to do their jobs. Yet one more reason why it does not matter if they have a D or an R after their name. Neither party has respected the point that when it comes to getting the care these veterans paid for it ahead of time when they put their lives on the line.

If you want to talk about the problems with the VA and want to go on Facebook with a political rant, and do not know the facts, you are part of the problem. When it comes to both sides, neither party has lived up to their claims of supporting the troops or honoring veterans because neither party has fixed a damn thing they promised they would do.

If you think it is a good idea to privatize the VA, you are ignorant of the historical facts, along with the simple fact that our veterans paid for the care they were promised and are not civilians. THEY PAID FOR SERVICE FROM THE VA WITH THEIR OWN SERVICE TO THIS NATION!

Former Marine James McKenna wants the VA to help him with PTSD
Newsday
By Martin C. Evans
February 4, 2017

Former Marine Corps Lance Cpl. James “Jimmy” McKenna has struggled with anxiety that his Veterans Affairs doctors have linked to rocket attacks he endured during the Gulf War in 1991.

He said the anxiety has crippled his ability to hold a job as a correction officer in the Nassau County jail. The sound of the prisoners, banging doors and the tense atmosphere revived feelings of danger that McKenna said he had developed during the war.

“I was reluctant to accept it, but as time went on, I realized I needed help,” said McKenna, who has been enrolled in inpatient post-traumatic stress disorder programs at Veterans Health Administration facilities for much of the past year.

But McKenna, 48, of Wantagh, said he was rejected for benefits from the VA’s Veterans Benefits Administration when he applied during his hospitalization at an upstate facility. He said that rejection came as financial pressures related to his inability to work pushed his family toward foreclosure, and threatened his wife and four children with homelessness.
read more here