The Daily Times - Nation's Vets Deserve End to Backlog at VA

Op-Ed

By Patrick Meehan

On this Memorial Day weekend, families across Delaware County will take part in ceremonies paying tribute to the countless Americans who have given their lives in the defense of our freedom. It's a time to remember the heroism and courage of those who made the ultimate sacrifice. It's also a time to honor the service of all veterans who have served our country.

I'm fortunate to have working in my District Office in Springfield two military veterans, Andrew Colket and Eric Cobar. These young men served their nation in uniform and continue to serve by working with veterans from across the 7th District to help them get the benefits they deserve.

We owe all of our veterans a tremendous debt of gratitude, and we have an obligation to ensure they receive the care and benefits they earned.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is charged with the task of providing health care and benefits to our veterans. The VA's motto is "to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and orphan." These words, taken from Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address, give the VA its solemn purpose: the care and treatment of the men and women who have served our nation in the armed forces, their families and their survivors. Millions of veterans across the country rely on the Department of Veterans Affairs for life-saving medical treatment. VA benefits help veterans and their families pay for medication, housing, and education.

But the VA is failing our veterans. Today, local veterans must wait an average of more than 500 days -- almost a year and a half -- for the Department of Veterans Affairs' Philadelphia office to process their disability claims. Nationwide, the average wait time is more than nine months.

These veterans must put their lives on hold while they await a decision on their claim. Tragically, more than 19,000 veterans have died while waiting for the VA bureaucracy to process their claims. The families surviving these veterans are then forced to wait months for the compensation they're owed.

This backlog is not new. In the last four years, Congress has increased the Department of Veterans Affairs' annual funding by 40 percent. But since then, the average time our veterans must wait for their claims to process has exploded by 2,000 percent. A program to digitize veterans' health records has taken four years and spent more than $530 million in taxpayer dollars. But today, more than 95 percent of records are still on paper.

This is unacceptable.

The Department of Veterans' Affairs has issued a plan to eliminate the backlog by 2015, but there are real concerns that the VA won't be able to meet its own deadline. I've written Secretary Eric Shinseki and asked for an update on the implementation of this plan.

Inefficient bureaucracy and ineffective leadership are not excuses for a failure to fulfill our commitment to America's veterans. The VA backlog is a classic story of bureaucratic red tape, poor planning and deficient implementation harming the very men and women -- our nation's veterans -- the agency was created to serve. Over the last few weeks, stories of incompetence, malfeasance and cover-up in Washington have shaken the confidence of the American people in their government. The federal government's bureaucracy is not responsive to its citizens, and it's not spending their money effectively. Federal agencies like the VA exist to serve the American people -- not the other way around. It's time our government is held accountable.

Fulfilling our commitment to America's veterans by ending the VA backlog is a good place to start. Our veterans were promised the benefits of the VA, and they most certainly earned them. At the very least, they deserve a timely, judicious decision on their claims.

It's time for our government to act to end the VA backlog.

U.S. Rep. Patrick Meehan, R-7, resides in Upper Darby.

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