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Oct. 1, 2023 - Stew Peters Show
01:01:07
Veterans Affairs Letting Thousands of Claims Fall Through the Cracks?!
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Time Text
If I were to tell you that tens of thousands of VA claims have been lost, forgotten, fallen through the cracks, or something like that, would you be surprised?
No?
I didn't think so.
I wasn't either.
This has been an issue for the VA for many many years.
But now, apparently, there is some talk of accountability.
Those who are seemingly responsible for these claims falling through the cracks, so to speak, may be held accountable.
But who knows what that really means?
Today we're going to discuss a little bit about that and see what we think.
I'm sure that I could come up with some alternatives.
I'm sure you could come up with some alternatives as far as accountability goes.
So, let's get into it.
Stick with us.
Don't go away.
We start now.
Hey, everybody.
Welcome here to the next episode of The Richard Leonard Show.
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Okay, so VA. They're there for us, right?
They're there for veterans.
They're there to take care of the men and women who have chosen to serve this country honorably.
There apparently has been a discovery made that thousands and thousands of claims for disability, apparently some Pension claims, other things that have just been filed.
Veterans have been notified that they've been received.
And then we wait.
And then when you call the check, they tell you, yep, we're working on it.
We'll get back to you as soon as possible.
And so then we wait again.
Would you also be surprised to hear that some of these claims, as reported by the veterans who filed them in many cases, have gotten no response for years?
And the VA has come out and now has acknowledged That there's an issue.
And I guess I'm not quite clear on the fact whether or not they came out and acknowledged.
I think that maybe they were pressured and had to answer the questions.
But I believe others have found the information, put their manhood on the table and called out the VA. So there is an article that I had found.
It was in the Military Times.
I got it up here.
I think we should go through it because I have some input.
And as always, guys, as you're watching or listening, if you have anything to add, whether it's good, bad, or indifferent, you're not going to hurt my feelings.
If you got a negative comment, leave a negative comment.
There's trolls everywhere.
But go ahead and do that.
We'll get to those.
But let me get over here.
There we go.
Alright.
Lawmakers demand accountability after VA loses track of veteran claims.
So even the title there, I guess, tells us, right, the VA didn't come out and acknowledge, hey, we've fobbed up, we've lost some claims, but we need to make it right.
Nope, they were called out and of course, I don't believe they had any choice but to acknowledge their mistake.
So let's go through this here.
House Republicans on Tuesday, so just so you know, this article was written on the 26th, which would have been Tuesday of this last week.
So on Tuesday, House Republicans called for employee discipline and potential firings.
After discovery of tens of thousands of veterans' disability cases were lost for months or years in the Department of Veterans Affairs claim system due to what they're calling software glitches.
Now, let's just stop right there for a second, right?
And let's talk about this.
Software glitches, and I don't know when this excuse started, but I'll tell you, in 2008, 2007 or 2008 when I initially started going to the VA and applying for benefits I was also told of old outdated software That's glitchy So please what they told me was please don't be Alarmed
or surprised if we need you to resubmit some paperwork so make sure you have copies of all your stuff And just be ready for that And it was the fellow who helped me initially file my claim to get enrolled in the VA and into the compensation and pension system for my benefits who told me this.
Now, in the year 2023, when, of course, undeniably, we've had nothing better.
Technologically than we have now.
And of course, that's a natural progression, right?
Technology will never be better now than it is five years from now.
It just keeps getting better.
And in some cases, in my opinion, a little more scary, but that's probably a whole nother conversation.
If we have known for almost 20 years For sure, that the VA software system is glitchy and there's issues with it and it's affecting the way that the department is processing claims and getting veterans the benefits that they've earned.
According to the government, why is this still an issue in 2023?
And I'm sure that answers that we would get are, well, we've made some pretty good strides in technology, and we've done this, and we've done that, and we've done the other thing.
And maybe that's true.
And so if there's credit to be paid, then let's make sure that we pay that credit to whoever deserves it.
But the biggest issue, seemingly...
For veterans in this country, as it relates to the VA, is access to care and access to benefits.
And not only just access, but ease of access.
How easy is it for me as a member of the military who's now exiting service to be able to enroll in the system, get down the road of securing benefits that I may or may not be Eligible for, but how will I know for sure until my claim is processed?
And then the VA will tell me that I'm either eligible and this is what I will receive or that I'm not eligible for whatever that reason is.
And so if that system has been glitchy and hasn't been working properly for all these years, why is it still this big of an issue?
I mean, one would ask, why is it an issue at all?
I would ask, why is it still this big of an issue?
Because in my opinion, asking a government agency to completely remedy a problem in 15 to 20 years just sounds undoable for whatever reason.
How have we not been able to find a way to streamline the claims process for these folks?
And, I mean, we're going to get into the rest about numbers.
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Right away, the first paragraph has many words of bullshit in it.
Software glitches.
What?
Anyway, let's keep going here.
VA.gov has gaps and veterans are falling into them, says Representative Matt Rosendale, who is a Republican from Montana.
He also chairs the House Veterans Affairs Subcommittee on Technology.
And on Tuesday in the hearing, he said, this is a situation where the VA is badly in need of independent oversight.
Well, clearly, I believe that the VA may have been in need of independent oversight for some time.
In August, so not a month ago, the VA leaders announced that they had found roughly 32,000 veteran disability claims, some of them dating back years.
And what's interesting about this, folks, What's interesting about this is that there's not a whole lot of information about how many years this is going back, how many months, and how many...
They didn't do a good job, and if they did, I wasn't able to find it.
But they did not do a good job about articulating what types of claims were Have been lost if they're categorized at all.
They say that they're disability claims.
But there's more than one type of disability claim.
There's a lot of different tiers and there's a lot of different subgroups of things to claim.
And nor did they say by number, you know, like A thousand of them were from zero to five years and a thousand from, you know, five to ten years.
There wasn't that kind of information.
They just say that it's dating back years.
Due to technical flaws in the department's VA.gov filing system, two weeks later, so well into August, officials acknowledged 57,000 more claims That have been delayed involving veterans trying to add dependents to their accounts.
And now, this is an interesting thing because we already heard about technology glitches.
And for those of you who don't know, adding a dependent to your profile, so to speak, in the VA system is as easy Well, for me it was anyway, and I imagine that the process isn't a whole lot different for veterans, no matter what era you served or what your situation is, what your disability rating is.
I don't think that the process for adding dependents.
So if you get married, if you have new kids, you know, whatever that is, some people are caring for their elderly parents so that you can then make them dependents of yours if they're Dependent on your financial backing to help them to continue to live.
Excuse me.
It's just $57,000?
How is this possible?
To add dependents, you log into the site.
You click on your profile and you click, there's a link there that says something about adding dependents or adding beneficiaries or whatever.
And you go in and you add their name, date of birth, and I want to say the last four of their social security number and click submit and it should add them.
Now I'm sure that there's some kind of process to verify That these people are who you say they are and that their birth date and their last form matches up with whatever system the government uses to verify.
But to have 57,000 people delayed just adding dependents is a huge deal because the amount of dependents you have and the type of dependents you have dictates what your payment, your monthly disability compensation payment will be.
For example, if I have my wife and my four children, that is a whole different ball of wax, a whole different monthly payment than if I was a single dad with two children.
If I have a wife and one child, that's a different payment than single dad with two children or a veteran with a spouse and four children.
And so for every dependent you add, it changes your payment.
And so if you're missing them, you're not being adequately compensated.
And all of this based on what the government tells you that you are eligible for.
Basically what they say is you provide us the proof that you're eligible for this and you will get your benefit.
So, 57,000 veterans were not getting accurate payments while they were waiting for their dependents to be added.
And I'm sure now the questions are, am I going to be retroactively paid?
And hopefully, these folks are keeping track of what they're supposed to be getting based on what they are getting, if anything, so that they can have an accurate count, an accurate depiction of what they've been shorted.
But again, how is this something that is still this big of an issue in 2023?
Let's continue.
Moving on.
In all of the cases, VA officials pledged to backdate veterans pay as soon as possible.
But the mistakes may have been delayed It may have delayed potentially thousands of dollars in monthly payouts to individuals suffering from military-related illnesses or injuries.
Veteran Affairs Chief Information Officer Kurt Delbini, sir, and if you ever hear this and I slaughtered your name, I apologize, but I believe it's Kurt Delbini, noted that the errors represent a small fraction of more than 7 million cases filed since early 2018.
But he also acknowledged that any mistake that causes financial harm to veterans is unacceptable.
Well, thank you, Mr.
Delbini, for acknowledging that it's unacceptable.
But please forgive me and anyone else if they don't believe you, if they don't trust That the issue is going to be made right.
And see, I believe that part of all of this, before we continue down the road with the article, I believe that all of this is issues stemming from the unraveling of the PACT Act.
The VA was inundated with claims and problems, of course, because of the volumes of claims, when the PACT Act became live, I guess we can say.
It became live last year in August, in August of 22.
Now, before it became live and after it became live, the VA had already had acknowledged that there is going to be a mad dash of applications.
In fact, they were asking for veterans to all file their claims before a certain date, which I believe was the end date for retroactive payment to the first day That it unraveled.
To the first day that it was unveiled and available was this last August.
So within one year, if you were to get your claim in, you were able to collect your benefit back to the very first day that the law became the law.
But Just because the VA says, we're gonna make this right.
And any veteran who is missing out on benefits, we're gonna make it right.
Well, I really hope that they will forgive us for having the attitude that we will believe it when we see it.
Because we've been told a lot of things by the VA. That haven't come to fruition.
Now, I am also a type of person that would like to give credit where credit is due.
And so for Mr.
Del Beeney to openly and publicly say that, quote, any mistake that causes financial harm to veterans is unacceptable.
Good.
I'm glad that you recognize that.
The question is, does the secretary recognize that?
Does his little support staff of minions recognize that?
Hopefully he does, and hopefully he agrees with you and takes that to heart.
Let's keep going.
The VA will resolve these issues, prevent them from happening again, and address them more quickly when needed, he told lawmakers.
And most importantly, we'll make sure that all impacted veterans get the benefits and services that they deserve quickly as possible.
And here we go.
But several lawmakers said that these promises are not enough.
And I really like this guy, but my dude, Congressman Luttrell, Morgan Luttrell from Texas, Of course, he had a quote and I'm glad he did because I like when he gets in the mix and I like when he starts questioning people in committee hearings and on the floor and when he has the floor to talk,
I enjoy listening to him talk because after all, Congressman Luttrell is a Navy SEAL and those guys are kind of just a no bullshit type of person.
Right?
He's gonna call a spade a spade all day long, and if your feelings are hurt, well, that's just too bad.
Because it is what it is.
And so, when he gets in the mix, I enjoy it, which is part of what drew me to this topic, right?
I like following the things that he does.
I think we have a problem with addressing the major issues in leadership and officials not being held accountable for things that they do or do not do in upholding their responsibilities to veterans.
My concern is that no one is holding anybody.
Nobody is holding anybody responsible for this debacle.
And I believe that he's right.
It's not enough, in my opinion, For the VA to just acknowledge it and then say, well, you know, there was a mistake.
Our software is glitchy and, you know, we don't really have enough money.
Maybe that's part of the issue.
They're going to say they don't have enough money to design a new software program, which that might be accurate because I'm sure that that's not very cheap.
And it's hard to have enough money to do things like that when we're spending 50 billion dollars everywhere else in this country except at home.
You know, on top of everything else that it costs the government to operate.
You know, as we talked about last week, about 50 billion dollars a year goes out to foreign spending.
But we won't beat that dead horse, not yet again this week.
But Congressman Littrell is on to something.
Who is responsible?
And who is going to be held accountable?
Who is going to carry the torch for changes that are clearly needed in the system?
If the software has been glitchy for years, who's accountable?
Who's responsible for identifying that?
Which doesn't seem like that's a problem.
The problem has been identified.
But who's responsible for grabbing their manhood and fixing it?
Or at least acknowledging it and getting down the road to fixing it?
And fixing it in a way that doesn't leave 57,000 veterans without dependence on their profile, so they're not receiving proper benefits.
Who's responsible for fixing this so that 32,000 veterans haven't fallen through the cracks?
Why is that an acceptable acknowledgement of the problem?
With no accountability.
If you ask me, it falls on the heads of every department and the secretary.
But that begs the question, how many secretaries has the VA had since this has been an issue?
And we really can't pinpoint how long this has been an issue.
We just know that it's been a long time.
So I would imagine that it'd be safe to say that for the last four, maybe five secretaries, secretary of the VA, the last four or five people that have been in that position, maybe six or seven, can all share in the blame.
If your people aren't doing their job properly, you as a leader are the one to take the fall first.
And so, if you need to be fired, and then you're going to say that, well, you know, I directed this person and that person and this and that to be done, and it just never got done properly, and I didn't know that it was...
Those excuses, in my opinion, aren't...
They're not...
They're not okay.
They're not viable.
So that would tell me, all of you need to go.
But now then we run into an issue where...
There's not enough people to do the work.
So we're not going to make a dent in this backlog anytime soon.
So what's the less of the two evils?
Have subpar people doing subpar work and still getting something a little bit done?
Because the fact of the matter is that it could have been a lot more than 32,000 veterans who have fallen through the cracks for days, weeks, months, years, decades, who knows, versus just nobody doing it.
Manpower has been...
An issue in the VA claims process for a long time.
As long as I have been knowledgeable of the issue, which I would say is about 2007 when I got into veteran service work.
And because nobody wants to do the job.
It's severely underpaid.
They make it extremely competitive.
They make it extremely stressful.
You have to process so many claims a day or you're going to lose your job.
And of course they make those jobs sound super sexy with pay, which the pay I think is pretty decent, but the best thing about it is your benefits.
The medical benefits, retirement benefits, federal service, a lot of veterans want to get into federal work because it is now then an extension of their military time.
If they did not do 20 years in the military and they did 15, And then they do 10 years of federal employment with the VA or any federal agency.
All that time gets lumped together for retirement, which is great.
It's a great program.
But is it a great enough program to warrant 89,000, roughly, veterans, in this case, waiting on benefits?
Waiting to hear if they're even gonna get them, let alone, when are they gonna be paid out?
And when can they depend on them coming in so they can get down down the road with life, living comfortably?
Because the reason for these types of benefits are because your military service, whatever happened to you, may hinder you from Earning the income that you could have made had you not been wounded or come up sick from whatever in your career put you there.
So it's a catch-22 in my opinion, and what's the lesser of two evils?
But I know one thing for sure.
Congressman Luttrell is on to something.
My concern is that no one is holding anybody, not holding anybody at all responsible for this issue.
And that is a big issue.
Stick with us folks.
We run out of time in this segment.
We'll be right back.
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In the last segment we ended with Congressman Luttrell talking about how nobody's being held responsible for these issues.
And I couldn't agree with him more.
And if somebody is being held responsible, they should probably be talked about.
They should be outed publicly so that the masses know who to be pissed off at.
Because somebody's going to feel the heat from the constituency.
And of course, coming up on an election year, nobody wants any undue pressure.
Nobody wants any undue heat on their career, on their tail.
So, of course, I'm sure that there's going to be some backpedaling and there's going to be some sucking up, which I think we're going to see right now.
Moving on.
Del Beeney said that leadership is pressing for fixes and improvements to the system, but not with the threat of mass firings.
Officials from the department said that work will include better oversight systems to ensure similar problems in the future are quickly caught, preventing problems from compounding over months or years.
Well, isn't that comforting?
They're pressing for fixes.
Guys, we've been pressing for fixes for a long time.
I can't tell you how many, in the day of social media and camera phones, I can't tell you how many videos are out there of people begging and pleading with the system to please help, please do something to fix this.
And we always end up in the same spot.
We always end up with another article explaining what the problem is, and then somebody in the leadership change talking about how we're working on it, we're gonna fix it, I promise we're gonna make it right.
And very rarely did those promises ever come.
But I think that one thing would help.
If you start making an example out of people, Then that threat of discipline, that threat of accountability, that threat of being called out, it becomes very real.
Because at the end of the day, these folks who are in charge of finding improvements and fixes, they're getting paid.
They're getting their salary.
They're getting their medical coverage.
They're getting their benefits from their jobs.
But the people that are due these benefits are still waiting and finding a way to live without because there's no other option.
Maybe if we put some of the people who are responsible for these types of mess-ups, these types of debacles, is what I like to call it, and then they have to find themselves in the same or similar situation as these veterans who are making do with whatever it is that they can get their hands on to make do, maybe then...
There'll be some change made.
Maybe then there'll be some urgency to get these things fixed.
And if the fixes are not that easy, if the fixes are something that, you know, just they take a lot of time because, well, we have to write the code and we have to design this and we have to make sure that all these systems work together and, you know, there's HIPAA stuff and there's information that, you know, there's not public access and things like that and make sure it's all protected, great.
But maybe those are things that the constituency, the public, should be made aware of so that there's some kind of progress being shown.
But being just left in the dark, in my opinion, is something that is not going to be helpful for anybody to feel comfortable about the situation.
And the almost 89,000 veterans That are doing without right now, as it relates to just this one article that we found, God knows what else veterans are waiting for as it relates to VA benefits or to care or to ease of access or whatever the hell you want to call any of those other programs.
Who is being held accountable?
Let me ask you this.
It's somewhat of a rhetorical situation, right?
It's somewhat of a rhetorical question.
But if I leave my house right now, if I'm sitting at home right now and I leave my house and I get in my truck and I drive to the gas station and I fill up my truck with gas and then I pull off without paying for it, Am I responsible?
Can I just tell the cops or the gas station?
Well, you know, the pump, the screen or the credit card reader at the pump, it was glitchy.
But I'll figure out how to get back there and I'll make it right.
I'll pay you for it.
Is that an acceptable answer to them?
When the IRS comes to you and says, hey, by the way, Maybe you made a mistake on filing your tax return.
You owe us another $500 in taxes for 2018 or whatever it is because those things catch up to you, which I found out.
I made a mistake once about how to claim my child on my taxes and I put it in the wrong box or signed the wrong thing or something.
And then it turned out that they overpaid me, right?
I got overpaid by like five, six, $700 or something like that.
And you would have thought that I was an international drug runner slash bank robber.
They called me constantly.
I got letters.
Eventually it went to collections because I wasn't in a spot that I didn't have six or $700 just laying around that I could just send to the government.
I still had a mortgage to pay and I had kids to feed and activities to pay for and gas and blah, blah, blah, blah.
We all have our bills, right?
We all get it.
But when they need their money from you, boy, they're relentless.
But why is it that when you need something from them and it seems like they've made the mistake and you're not getting what's due to you, It's just, hey, we just need you to calm down.
We're working on it.
We're pressing our bosses for fixes and improvements to the system to ensure that you're taken care of and we'll make it right.
It's coming.
You just got to be patient.
Well, screw that.
You're not patient when you need something from me.
When I went to file my claim initially...
If one thing wasn't signed and dated properly, no, we're not even going to read it.
We're not even going to process it.
Get it out of here.
Take it away.
So, please, Department of Veterans Affairs, please forgive us.
If we're a little frustrated with your answers.
If we're a little frustrated with...
We're pressing for fixes and improvements.
You know, it's the best we can do.
We're not going to fire anybody.
We're not going to really hold anybody accountable.
But we're just going to enable this behavior some more.
And hopefully, somebody's moral compass will take over.
And they'll get it fixed properly.
And that's supposed to be good enough for us.
Well...
Clearly it's not.
Moving on.
Earlier this month, in a letter to the VA leadership committee chairman Mike Bost, a Republican from Illinois, laminated the problems as just the latest in a string of electronic filing issues that continue to plague the department.
Hmm.
Continue to plague the department.
Clearly it's been an issue, right?
Such problems include ongoing issues with the department's 10-year, $16 billion effort to overhaul its electronic health record system, which has been delayed by technical issues for months.
VA officials at Tuesday's hearing promised regular updates to the committee on proposed fixes in the coming weeks.
Rosendale said he expects to hold more hearings on the issue.
As we move ahead.
So, there's more to come, folks.
Stay tuned.
Right?
So, here's what's happening, right?
As it seems to me, and remember, I'm not a super smart man, right?
I was an infantryman.
I know how to click some buttons on here and record myself talking to you.
But I think I got common sense licked, right?
I think I have a little bit of common sense and maybe a tad bit of wisdom.
I'm not very old, but I feel like I got a little bit of wisdom.
We're going to hold more hearings on the issue to figure it out.
So not only now are veterans not getting the benefits in which they've earned and Properly applied for.
Nobody ever said that there was a mistake in the way that the claims were filed or anything like that that would put the onus on the veteran or the organization that may have helped the veteran organize their claim to submit it.
It seems to me as the VA has taken responsibility for this issue, which is great.
Thank you for that.
But now, At further expense to the taxpayer, you, me, our friends and family, at further expense to us, we're going to have more hearings.
But remember, we're not going to do anything as far as threatening anybody's job.
We're not going to discipline anybody.
We're going to have more hearings.
And in those hearings, I would guess that we're going to be asking for updates from the VA, which would be Mr.
Delbini about how this, who's the guy as far as technology is concerned in the VA system.
How are we fixing this issue?
And Mr.
Delbini is going to sit at some table, right, at a hearing with his arms crossed, and he's going to be looking up, confused, Like you just got hit in the nuts with a gardening spade.
You're going, well, you know, sir, I'll have to get back to you.
I'll take all of your comments and your concerns under advisement and I'll bring them to my staff and our cohort or whatever the hell it is that they have.
And we'll get a response to your question in writing in the next week or two.
Which really means, guys, that there is no answer.
There's seemingly no fixes coming.
Because nobody ever has concrete answers about what's happening and what's being done to make it better.
But, guess what?
We'll schedule some more hearings, right?
So somebody's assistant has to get on some portal somewhere and reserve the space and let everybody know so C-SPAN can get their cameras set up and all these congressmen and whoever else is on these committees can make time to come to these hearings and sit down and they can discuss the issue and they'll spend an hour talking about what the issue is or telling what the issue is.
And then they'll spend two or three hours of testimony.
And everybody gets their five minutes and then whatever else other time they need at the end.
And really at the end of all of this, hearings that cost more money, there's no action.
There's no answers.
And these men and women who are waiting for the help that they were promised are still waiting.
Trying to figure out how to feed their kids.
Figuring out what bills to pay.
What bill am I not going to pay this month because I can't pay all of these.
Not until I get my disability check.
And then we run into...
I mean, this is a whole...
To me, in my opinion, I mean, we could go down the rabbit hole many different directions.
But knowing veterans a little bit the way that I do and the way that veterans think and operate a little bit from my experience...
Not only are they skipping bills because they don't have the money to pay it, but they're also, as months go by, well, that's another $400 on my VA check when it comes.
So, now there's also plans for vacations and new trucks and maybe a house down payment or something.
Meanwhile, we're not getting anywhere.
And nobody's being held accountable.
There's one more thing I found that I thought would be quite interesting.
So in this article alone, they had said, let me scroll back up here so I don't get the numbers wrong, that in August, the VA announced that they had found 32,000 veterans disability claims delayed.
Okay?
Two weeks later, officials also acknowledged about 57,000 cases being delayed because veterans are trying to add dependents.
So 89,000 roughly is what's been acknowledged in the last month or two.
89,000 is a lot of people.
But I also found this.
This comes right from VA.gov.
This is the Veterans Benefits Administration Report.
And this is the claims backlog.
It's very short and sweet.
It's a graph.
It says here, because it's kind of blurry on my screen.
It says VA claims backlog.
Includes rating bundle disability compensation and pension claims received by VA that normally require a rating decision.
This claims bundle includes initial and supplemental claims for service-connected disabilities for veterans and their survivors, Agent Orange-related claims, and pension claims for veterans.
Once VA decides a claim, it's no longer in the claims inventory.
If a veteran appeals a benefit decision, The appeals claim is tracked separately.
So this graph that we're looking at, which let me scroll up here so you can see it.
This is just initial claims that are in the backlog and it goes from March of 2013 all the way to June of 2023.
So just over 10 years.
Now, Currently, as of June of 23, we sit at 297,079 total backlog claims.
Folks, these are veterans waiting for answers on their disability and compensation claims.
298,000.
If you look back at March of 13, this was at the height of the war.
It was 611,073.
Now you can see the progression, how we got really low, you know, in about September of 15 to March of 20, it was kind of hovering just below that 100,000 claim mark.
And now we've started, since the end of the war, we've started creeping back up.
But...
Where is...
Where are the rest?
Right?
Where are the rest of these claims?
And keep in mind that they said that these were...
So down here it says, includes disability compensation and pension claims that have been received by VA that require a development and a decision by a VA claims processor.
So these are...
Let me just tell you a little bit about how this works, right?
So these VA claim processing people.
They're severely overworked and underpaid if you ask me.
Many of them that I've ever come into contact with are very nice people and they care a lot about the welfare of the veterans that are applying for benefits.
But they can only do so much.
They can only go so fast.
These folks go into work every day.
They sit down at their desk.
They log into the system and I mean, and I don't know for sure, I've never done the job, but I've known a few people that have done this job.
And to the best of my knowledge, they open up this claim system and they click next or load or whatever, and a claim pops up.
And now that one is assigned to them.
It was the next one in the queue.
And so it's their responsibility to read it, see what the veteran has claimed, Based on what the narrative is and the evidence that they have provided to support their claim for benefits.
And then cross-reference that with VA policy to see what percentages fit.
Right?
Because each condition or illness that you claim is assigned a percentage.
And so you go through issue or disability one by one, right down the line.
So if I put in a claim for TBI, and then I put in a claim for PTSD, and I put in a claim for my back, and then I put one in for my knees, and I put one in for my hips, and then I put one in for my hearing, and then I got tinnitus.
So that's seven or eight claims all in one big claim.
So they have a big job.
Because they have to diligently read all these things and then make determinations based on VA policy cross-referenced with the evidence that's provided to assign a percentage to each condition and then there's a formula somewhere, somehow, That spits out a total rating for that one veteran.
So it's not as easy as sitting down, opening up a file, perusing it, you know, and then just assigning what you think is best and going on to the next one.
There's a lot of information to sift through.
And so, they can't really do this.
They can't do it super fast because, in my opinion, if you're burning through them super fast, you're going to find that there's going to be mistakes and veterans are probably not getting fair evaluations.
And so I'm sure that there is some kind of SOP about how to sift through and read and process these claims.
I'm not a thousand percent sure of what that process is or what that SOP looks like, but I'm positive that there's one there.
There's got to be.
But as it sits right now, well, not right now, but in June of 2023, 298,000 veterans are waiting on claims.
It also doesn't say on here what constitutes a backlogged claim.
Is that if I put in a claim today at noon and it's not processed by tomorrow at noon, does that automatically count as a backlog claim?
Either way, 298,000 claims throughout the country is a lot when these positions, as I stated before, in my opinion, are overworked, underpaid, and these offices are severely understaffed.
And so, There's going to be backlogs.
There's going to be issues.
And so why is there not more of a effort on behalf of the people that are working hard to process these claims, these processors?
Why are the people higher up that are responsible for things like technology glitches Why are they not working harder to fix it?
And why are they not being held accountable?
And if they are working hard to fix it, then tell us, show us.
If they are going to be held accountable and they're going to be disciplined, I don't know that we need to know who they are by name, but at least show some kind of progress, right?
Show us that there's something happening.
Because at the end of the day, there was a promise made.
There was a promise made to every man and woman who decided to sign on that dotted line to join whatever branch of service it is that they chose to join.
And we're not upholding it.
And we're blaming it on things like glitches in software.
And then the leadership in charge is not taking enough responsibility by saying, we're going to figure it out, and whoever's responsible for not fixing this, after 10 years?
They said, it's been 10 years.
That this medical records thing has been...
Let me see here.
Problems include ongoing issues with the department's 10-year, $16 billion effort to overhaul the electronic health record system, which has been delayed by technical issues for months.
How is that possible?
We're spending $16 billion, and you know why?
In my opinion, I think that it's going awry.
It's because secretly, maybe...
This, what do they call it, electric health record system, this EHRS, I'm sure they'll call it, is not going to be just for VA, but it's going to be for everybody.
It's going to start with VA because veterans are the guinea pigs.
And furthermore, as we've talked about before on this show, There's a very good chance that the mentality behind the decision makers is that if we just keep them waiting, eventually a lot of them are going to move on or die.
And dead veterans are cheap veterans.
It all comes back to, in my mind, in my opinion, that the amount of money the government pays out for veteran benefits Is astronomical.
And I believe that there's a lot of people that sit in positions of power in our government that believe that it's probably not necessary to spend that much money to pay out the men and women who have wore a uniform to defend this place.
And I hope that I'm wrong.
That is my tinfoil hat wearing moment of the weekend.
I hope that I'm wrong.
But I'm telling you folks, all of this equate, whatever the answer is, whatever the problem is, whatever the fix is, we need to get to it.
Because at the end of the day, this is really affecting veterans, 89,000 of them that we've identified in the last month and a half, but also 297,079 veterans as a whole.
They're waiting.
They're waiting for the help they were promised.
Imagine if the government was waiting for you to do what they require of you to be a U.S. citizen.
Imagine if the government was waiting on 297,000 of us to pay our taxes.
And maybe they are.
I know maybe there's Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people in this country that aren't paying taxes and they're evading and blah, blah, blah, whatever that is.
But the point is, when the government wants money from you, they're going to get it.
When you need money or medical care or support or benefits from the government, we're working on fixes for it.
Just be patient.
Checks in the mail.
Anyway, folks, that's all the time that we have for today.
The show flew by quick today.
By the way, I did want to mention that this is today marks show number 80 for us here at the Richard Leonard Show.
And so that's a pretty awesome milestone.
I wanted to recognize it.
And we couldn't have done it without you.
So, as always, thank you.
Thank you for being here.
Thank you for participating.
Please leave your comments below.
Hit us up on, you can find me on Twitter, RealRichardJ.
Let's have the conversation.
If we don't start having the conversation, the conversation won't be had elsewhere, clearly, because then we're just waiting for fixes.
So anyway, take care of yourselves.
Have a great evening.
Have a great week.
We'll see you next week.
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