One big Fubar...
Errors Delayed Claims for Aging, Disabled Veterans
Apr 03, 2016 | I've been getting complaints for years about how slow the government is to appoint fiduciaries to manage veterans benefits for former service members or their spouses who are old or disabled. It seemed as if the Department of Veterans Affairs had forgotten about them. In some cases, it did.
See also:The agency sheepishly announced a few weeks ago that about 14,000 fiduciary claims, some dating to 2000, didn't get processed because they weren't transferred properly within the agency's bureaucracy. The delay could have cost veterans and their families thousands of dollars. If a veteran dies before a fiduciary is appointed, benefits that have been withheld pending the appointment aren't always paid. Uncle Sam profits from its tardiness. "We sincerely apologize to these veterans and their survivors for this regrettable delay," VA Deputy Secretary Sloan Gibson said in a statement March 24. "We are taking immediate action to complete these cases, initiate the fiduciary appointment process, and ensure that these errors do not happen again."
The cover of a VA publication about its fiduciary program, which came under heavy criticism from the department's own inspector general.
The VA's definition of "immediate action" probably differs from yours and mine. The VA said it could take as long as six months, or more. What else did you expect from an agency with a reputation for being as quick as a tortoise? The VA appoints fiduciaries to manage government benefits for veterans who are deemed incompetent to handle their money. That most typically happens with disabled and aging veterans, or their widows and widowers, who apply for pension benefits to cover the cost of their care in a nursing home. They must meet income requirements. Once they are approved, a process that can take months, their monthly benefits payments begin flowing. But they won't get any retroactive payments they are owed for the period between their application and approval if the VA believes a money manager is needed.
Staff will interview the veteran or eligible widow/widower to assess their competency. If it is determined that a fiduciary is required, appointing one can take many more months. During that time, the retroactive payments, which can be thousands of dollars, continue to be withheld. The VA isn't comfortable releasing such large sums to someone considered to be unable to manage their money. So veterans must draw down their savings or rely on relatives to pay the nursing home bill until that money is released, though I've heard that some homes graciously will let the bill ride for at least a while for the benefits to come through. A few years ago, I wrote about a Carbon County woman who went through that. It took her eight months to get appointed as fiduciary for her father, a World War II veteran, and likely would have taken longer if the Watchdog hadn't intervened.
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Veterans Facing Cancer Hope That 'Atomic Veteran' Bill Becomes Law
Apr 03, 2016 | Congress is considering a bill that would create a special "atomic veteran" designation for the men and women who worked to clean up nuclear waste from a South Pacific atoll nearly 40 years ago, a move that Maine veteran Paul Laird says was a long time coming.
But Laird, a 59-year-old from Otisfield who served with the U.S. Army's 84th Engineer Battalion on Enewetak Atoll and who is a three-time cancer survivor, said that the bill has only a slim chance of becoming law -- and that is not acceptable to him. As of now, only 30 co-sponsors have officially signed on to the bill, which is a number the Mainer said does not seem like enough. "We are not seeing people jump up and down to get on board," he said earlier this month. "We're a little disappointed. We're trying however we can to get the word out, but people just don't seem to think it's very important." The bill, H.R. 3870, is called the Atomic Veterans Healthcare Parity Act, and was introduced last November by US Rep. Mark Takai, D-Hawaii. It was referred to the House subcommittee on health on Nov. 6 and has not advanced any farther on its legislative path.
The website GovTrack.us, which follows Congress, only gave the bill a 5 percent chance of getting out of committee and a 1 percent chance of being enacted into law. Veterans such as Laird and Jeffery Dean of Belfast want to be designated as so-called atomic veterans so that if they are diagnosed with one of several specific cancers or nonmalignant conditions they can be entitled to compensation or free medical care through the US Department of Veterans Affairs. With this designation, they would not have to prove their cancers were caused by radiation and would likely have an easier time getting a disability rating from the VA.
A thermonuclear explosion rises above Enewetak Atoll on New Year's Eve 1952.
Laird and Dean were among approximately 6,000 American soldiers tasked with rehabilitating the atoll between 1977 and 1980 before it was returned to the people of the Marshall Islands. The tiny island was the scene of more than 40 nuclear tests from 1948 to 1958, and when the two Mainers were among those told to clean it up with little protective gear, they believe they became contaminated with radioactive dust. "The stuff was like baby powder," Laird said of the contaminated soil he moved with a bulldozer and bucket loader. "When you dumped it in the back of the truck it would just go poof. The first weeks I was there I begged for a dust mask. They said they were on back order and just wrap your T-shirt around your nose."
He said that he is in communication with 340 known surviving veterans from Enewetak Atoll, and of the 340, there is a 35 percent cancer rate. "We have many guys that have already died. We have lots more with a foot in the grave," Laird said. "I've had three different forms of cancer, which is very, very rare. I was in good shape my whole life, then all of a sudden, it was like someone flipped the switch. That's what radiation does." Dean, another cancer survivor, said last year that it is past time for the veterans to get the designation and health care they need. "We're all suffering the consequences," he said. "Vets are dying with no mystery to it."
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