With the V.A. overwhelmed, Veterans suffer needlessly

The Department of Veterans Affairs has produced it's annual year-end report to the congress, and for the third year running, the rate at which the V.A. acts to render decisions on disability claims fell further behind.

While the goal is to make determinations within 125 days, the reality is, on average it takes a claim 183 days to be acted on.

When a claim is rejected and appealed, the goal is to act on that appeal within one year, or 365 days. In reality, rejected claims take on average 660 days to be acted on; just under two years.

The VA has responded to this backlog by hiring new personnel, but it takes a reviewer two to three years to become efficient at their job, and the backlogs had a huge head start. While new personnel have been hired, and are being trained and gaining the acumen to do their jobs efficiently, veterans continue to be caught in limbo.

And when it is all said and done, just under 90% of all claims are found to be reasonable and valid, and the veteran receives the benefits he or she is due.

Very few wounded veterans have the ready resources that politicians seem to take for granted, and virtually none have the resources of the Bush clan. While they wait for their benefit determinations, they often face poverty, destitution and homelessness. No returning soldier should face homelessness, and no soldier should be relieved that they lost both arms because then the VA will have to give them a 100% disability rating!

That is why I favor the heartbreakingly simple approach advocated by Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard: Give the Veteran the benefit of the doubt. Provisionally approve all claims made by Veterans for disability benefits, and don't withhold health care benefits while the claim is under review by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Bilmes has been studying veterans’ medical care and disability benefits for years, and it is her considered and esteemed opinion that the current backlog simply overwhelmed a system that was already struggling under budget cuts before the wars started and created a whole bunch of new veterans needing services. Now things only stand to get worse. Last spring, in testimony before a congressional subcommittee, she predicted 250,000 to 400,000 claims will be filed over the next two years alone by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This, she maintained, would create a situation that she said “will rapidly turn the disability claims problem into a crisis.” The problems of the VA are exacerbated as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan grind on and on with no end in sight, and and the flood of wounded shows no sign of abating. And the DoD health system continues to dump patients into the underfunded VA system. This negatively impacts all veterans who use the system.

Keep in mind that Bilmes offered this testimony nearly a year ago, before the latest information on TBI was publicized.

The most recent findings are the result of percussive experiments conducted on animals, then the animals were sacrificed and the brain tissue examined microscopically. In the animal studies, scientists have discovered a fundamentally different injury than the “concussion” wound that has traditionally been ascribed to exposure to explosions. A concussion is essentially a bruise on the brain that generally heals with time.

Brain damage at the cellular level is likely permanent – and will almost certainly lead to further neurological degradation over time. Put bluntly, G.I.’s afflicted by TBI are not likely to get better, and in fact will get worse. How much worse is still unknown, but this will strain the system even further.

When the V.A. falters, it is the Veterans who stepped up and served who pay the price - again! - and who suffer as a result. That is a situation I find wholly intolerable. And frankly, anyone who professes unflagging support for the troops, but isn't hopping mad about the way our veterans are being treated once back home, should probably not profess their patriotism in direct proximity to me.

They gave the government the benefit of the doubt that they would not be sorely used when they joined up - the government owes them the same courtesy in return.

Go. Read. Glenn Greenwald. Now.

Wow.

This is one of the most fearless and scathing indictments of the village mentality in Washington DC that most of us will ever read.

I mean, holy shit. This will blow you away.

Big Media Consolidation and the FCC

Earlier, some deranged wingnut brought up the Fairness Doctrine. Without getting into the finer details, the Fairness Doctrine was designed to try to present people with an opportunity to hear opposing views on media outlets. This was instituted because the airwaves belong to the public, and the thinking was that hearing both sides of an argument was in the public interest.

There is no shortage of hysterical, Orwellian, mind-blowingly stupid reactions to the idea of bringing it back--all of them seem to emanate from the people who think that it's going to put Limbaugh and Hannity and O'Reilly out of business. It simply won't do that. Only the marketplace can do that. But if AM radio were dominated by liberals commentators, the conservatives in this country would be howling for it. There is also the Equal Time rule, which grew out of Eugene McCarthy's attempts to be heard in 1968 when he was challenging Lyndon Johnson. (Wonder if the wingnuts remember THAT?)

Another issue is media consolidation.Do you like how Media Consolidation enthusiast Rupert Murdoch has taken over the Wall Street Journal and started his own business network?

In honor of Cyber Monday, Fox Business did a segment yesterday on online shopping. A Fox reporter went to ESPN Zone in Washington, DC and interviewed Peter Perweiler, who was identified only as an “online shopper.” Perweiler told Fox Business that he is planning to shop on Cyber Monday and is looking at “big-ticket items this year.”

It’s no surprise that Perweiler was boosting online shopping. As Silicon Alley Insider uncovered, Perweiler is actually the marketing manager at the National Retail Federation. The NRF has blamed Fox Business’s sloppy reporting for the incident.

The FCC, under the leadership of Kevin Martin, is considering relaxing the rules that are now keeping the Rupert Murdochs of the world from consolidating even further so that they can continue to bring such high quality and excellent journalism to the American people.

Stopbigmedia.com has compiled some excellent reasons and done some fine work exposing the lies being spread by the FCC about consolidation and big media ownership. Sometimes, it feels like Rupert Murdoch is able to simply tell the government what to do and how to do it. Does THAT serve the public interest? Of course not.

Here are ten reasons why we should oppose this change:

•FACT #1: Martin’s ‘modest’ proposal is corporate welfare for Big Media.
Martin’s plan would unleash a buying spree in the top 20 markets, making it easier for companies like Belo, News Corp. and Tribune Co. to push out independent, local owners.

•FACT #2: Loopholes open the door to cross-ownership in any market.
Under Martin’s loose standards, cross-ownership waivers could be approved in hundreds of smaller cities and towns.

•FACT #3: Loopholes allow newspapers to own TV stations of any size.
The same technicalities could permit top-rated stations in any market to combine with major newspapers.

•FACT #4: FCC history shows weak standards won’t protect the public.
The current rules forbid cross-ownership, but the FCC hasn’t denied any temporary waiver request in years.

•FACT #5: Cross-ownership doesn’t create more local news.
The latest studies — using the FCC’s own data — show that markets with cross-ownership produce less total local news, as one dominant company crowds out the competition.

•FACT #6: Cross-ownership won’t solve newspapers’ financial woes.
Claims that the newspaper industry is about to “wither and die” are greatly exaggerated, and no evidence shows that cross-ownership would make things better.

•FACT # 7: The Internet is an opportunity, not a death sentence.
Mergers and consolidation are not the answer to the financial problems of the traditional media.

•FACT #8: Martin’s plan would harm minority media owners.
Nearly half of the nation’s minority-owned TV stations are lower-rated outlets in the top 20 markets, making them a target for Big Media takeovers.

•FACT # 9: A broken and corrupt process creates bad policies.
The FCC’s lack of transparency, flawed research and secret timetable have tossed aside basic fairness and accountability in the rush to change media ownership rules.

•FACT # 10: The public doesn’t want more media consolidation.
Martin’s actions ignore the millions of Americans — and 99 percent of the comments in the FCC docket — who oppose letting a few media giants swallow up more local media.

There is something un-American about having a handful of people control everything we read, hear, and watch. Do you ever get the feeling that it's 1902 and there is no Teddy Roosevelt out there who is going to go after the monied trusts and the robber barons?