Issue Position: Veterans

Issue Position

American veterans -- particularly those returning from combat with physical and psychological wounds -- should not have to worry about getting the full financial and medical benefits they were promised by the Department of Defense or the Department of Veterans' Affairs (the VA). Nor should they have to wait for weeks or months for treatment, be cared for in substandard facilities, or be subjected to lengthy claims processing delays and errors at the hands of an under funded, ineffective bureaucracy.

The VA and its component Veterans' Health Administration have been unable to do what they were intended to do. That has largely because the Bush administration was unwilling to plan for or budget the money for adequate care. This failure by Mr. Bush's administration paved the way for more attacks on veterans. In 2011 Republican Paul Ryan unveiled a budget that would, among other cuts, deny 1.3 million veterans the benefits they had been promised. Although this budget did not pass, the budget act written and overwhelmingly voted for by Republicans later in the year included ongoing cuts to the Veterans' Affairs budgets both now and in the future. It is sad that the Chair of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Republican Jeff Miller representing Florida's district one, was unaware of these cuts when he voted for the bill. And these are only the latest examples of America's failure to deliver the pay and medical care veterans were promised when they enlisted. Historically, except for World War II, America has not done well by her veterans, and I intend to fight to change that.

It is of interest to note here what the budgetary costs are for veterans as well as the expenditures for pensions paid to our retired military members and their spouses.

In 2010 veterans constituted 7.3% of the country's population. The governments's total expenditures that year were $3.721 trillion of which $108.9 billion was assigned to Veterans' Affairs with an additional $50,537 million paid out to military retirees for a total expenditure of $159.4 billion or 4.3% of the total federal budget We spent only 4.3% of the budget to support 7.3% of the population. To put this in perspective, that same year Social Security and Medicare accounted for 31% of the budget while the population over age 65 combined with the population 64 years of age and younger that was disabled and not working accounted for 24.3% of the population. I am not suggesting that we need to make cuts to either Social Security or Medicare, but rather that spending on the men and women who served this country needs to be, at the very least, brought into line with the spending on our elderly and disabled.

A Crisis

Until the Walter Reed scandal surfaced, our medical treatment of veterans was pretty much a dirty little secret except to the veterans. It should not have been a secret to the Army: Walter Reed is an Army hospital, and the chain of command went from the commanding officer to the Army Chief of Staff and then to the Secretary of Defense. It should not have been a secret to the Congress at large, and it most certainly should not have been a secret to the members responsible for oversight of the armed services and veterans' medical care.

The failure of the House and Senate to exercise their legislative and oversight responsibilities for veterans' health care programs and research has been nothing short of disgusting. The House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and its Subcommittee on Health have either failed to understand the needs of veterans, or failed to convince national leadership to act, or both.

Meanwhile, the VA's backlog of pending disability claims from veterans going all the way back to World War II is up to at least 400,000, and more than 100,000 claims are wrongly decided each year. Some 144,000 women and men sought care from the VA in the first quarter of 2006 -- 23 percent more than the Bush administration had estimated for the entire year. Similarly, the government projected that 18,000 returning soldiers would seek treatment for post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in 2006, but the VA treated 20,638 Iraqi war veterans for PTSD in the first quarter alone. All told, in 2006, the VA added 250,000 new beneficiaries. Veterans in disgraceful numbers have fallen through the cracks in the overtaxed VA system and are homeless. Many are Vietnam veterans, but veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are now beginning to appear on our streets, as well.

In addition to its problems with sheer numbers of cases, the VA never knows for sure how much money it will have. Its funding depends on the budget for the next fiscal year, which is appropriated only months in advance -- and sometimes not even then.

Advance funding -- the appropriation of funds a year or more ahead of the upcoming fiscal year -- is now authorized for a variety of educational and family services. Congress can and should authorize advance funding, which would definitely help to stabilize VA operations. Let's be very clear, however: advance funding is not a substitute for adequate funding.

Advance funding should extend out not 1 or 2, but 20 or 40 years into the future. Our ability to make precise estimates is limited, and they would have to be revised from year to year. Even with those limitations, such estimates would help define the size of the problem for many years ahead instead of 6 months ahead. Any business that plans on staying in business makes long-term estimates of its revenues and obligations in the same way.

American soldiers and Marines are receiving extraordinary, state-of-the-art care from skillful Army surgeons at the edges of the combat zones. As Dr. David E. Lounsbury, internist, retired colonel and coauthor of a new book issued by the U.S. Army called War Surgery in Afghanistan and Iraq, explains, "The average surgeon, civilian or military, has never seen this stuff. Yeah, they've seen guys shot in the chest. But the kind of ferocious blast, burn and penetrating trauma that's part of the modern I.E.D wound is like nothing they've seen, even in a Manhattan emergency room." Dr. Lounsbury also notes that the use of body armor has created new types of injuries, and that both injuries to the brain and the number of wounds for every death have increased. In short, more of our men and women are receiving horrible wounds, both physical and psychological, and more of them are surviving and coming back home permanently disabled.
Back in the USA, however, the government medical facilities are overwhelmed by the needs of soldiers injured in Iraq. Survivors of these awful wounds wait months for an appointment for physical or emotional help. The VA medical staff has a reputation for providing excellent care, but there are not enough doctors to go around.

Issues of Just Payment

A hot-button item right now is that of "concurrent payment" for retirement and disability. Mr. Bush's government argued that payment of retirement and disability is payment for the same service at the same time, which is commonly called "double-dipping." The problem with that argument, as pointed out clearly and simply by the National Commander of the American Legion, is that disability from combat wounds and longevity retirement (i.e., length of service) are not the same. It should also be noted that retirement payments to the military are a miniscule portion of the overall federal budget (0.001 % in 2010).

Bilmes and Joseph Stiglitz, co-authors of "The Three Trillion Dollar War," offer another, expanded rebuttal. "Budgetary expenditures also underestimate the true economic costs to the soldiers wounded because the outlays do not include adequate compensation for what tort law calls pain and suffering, or additional health care," said Professor Bilmes in an interview. "We believe veterans and their families receiving full disability payments bear costs equal to those who die in combat, and therefore we should assign each case a non-budgetary cost of $6.5 million (the number that economists calculate as the value of a human life). We assign a modest 20 percent of that figure to those who are wounded less seriously."

I will certainly work hard to see that retired, disabled veterans receive both retirement and disability pay.

There are other instances of veterans being deprived of pay through policy and legislative act. Around the mid-sixties, the government began to withhold social security from military pay. Then, once a soldier retired, the military retirement pay was docked by the amount of social security that was being received. In addition its fundamental silliness, think of all the additional bureaucratic person-hours that little accounting twist chewed up. There are other, more recent examples, but that one is a classic.

I will wind up with a comment on a story that appeared in Florida Republican Senator Mel Martinez's E-Newsletter. This piece told about a Korean-war veteran who resided in an assisted-living facility. In December 2006, the vet had submitted an application to the VA for a pension to which he was entitled. When he was unable to get a response, he finally contacted Senator Martinez. Not surprisingly, the VA acted swiftly once it heard from Senator Martinez. The vet is now receiving his pension and back payments. I am happy for the veteran. The troubling thing, of course, is the fact that the veteran had to go to a senator to get a pension that rightfully belonged to him. Veterans deserve at least as much efficiency as they get from the IRS! Adequate funding and oversight can ensure that happens.

Jim Bryan's Pledge

Veterans' issues should matter to all Americans -- not just to veterans -- for two main reasons. First, how we treat our veterans directly affects both military morale and enlistment. That makes veterans' affairs a national security issue. Second, if the government shirks its obligation to those who have served our country, it violates our basic tenets of governmental fairness and integrity -- and the failure to live up to those principles in one segment of our population is likely to spread like cancer to other groups.

I will take with me to the Congress the combat wounds that caused me to retire at 20 years, and I am going to take a sharp interest in veterans' matters whether or not I am appointed to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs. I will honor the service given by thousands of members and veterans of the armed forces in District 1, and I will fight hard to see that all American veterans are treated right.

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