A commission conducting the first major review of veterans disability benefits in 50 years was warned at its inaugural meeting that perhaps too many veterans have been deemed unemployable, which raises their compensation to the level of 100 percent disabled veterans.
Renee Szybala, director for operations of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Compensation and Pension Service, told the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission on Monday that the number of vets designated as unemployable has doubled in the last six years.
Part of that growth is blamed on the VA’s decision in 1999 to stop requiring disabled veterans to complete a form each year verifying that they are still unemployed, said Stephen Simmons, Szybala’s deputy.
“We re instituting that,” he said, citing recent findings that dropping the form requirement was a bad idea. The 214,000 veterans designated unemployable now are simply sent annual reminders that their compensation level is based on a determination that they can’t work.
Szybala noted other difficulties.
“There’s a question of whether people are giving (it) too easily,” she said, referring to VA claims adjudicators. “It’s a safety valve and when you need to get cases off your desk quickly, if people meet the criteria, just give it to them,” she said, describing the potential for abuse.
Also, though the category is tied to an inability to work, the higher payments continue into old age, when most Americans have stopped working anyway.
Commissioner Donald Cassiday, a retired Air Force colonel and bomber pilot, asked Szybala if a veteran age 90 could draw disability pay at the 100 percent level. In fact, she said, a veteran theoretically could apply for the benefits at age 90, arguing that his disabilities make him unable to work.
In its first two-day meeting, the commission also took testimony from defense officials, congressional auditors, veterans service groups and military associations. Group representatives defended the payment levels. Some expressed concern over how the commission came into being.
House Republican leaders mandated the commission as a condition for relaxing the ban on dual receipt of military retirement and VA disability compensation. The 13-member panel to review VA payments was a compromise for Republicans after they angered vet groups with a plan to tighten disability payments of future veterans by recognizing only injuries or illnesses resulting from “performance of duty.”
Under current law, any permanent injury or illness is service-connected and compensable if traced to time in service. Szybala cited as an example an off-duty service member injured roller-skating with his girlfriend.
“Disability need not be caused by military service … and that’s probably one of the things the commission will be grappling with,” she said.
The commission chairman, retired Lt. Gen. James Scott, former head of the Army Special Operations Command, said paranoia among some veterans over what the commission will recommend is unfounded.
Growth in the number of veterans rated unemployable drew a round of questions from commissioners, however. VA statistics show that about half of 460,000 veterans with disability ratings of 60 percent to 90 percent are now deemed unemployable and paid as if 100 percent disabled. Last year, the unemployable status added $4 billion to disability payments, Szybala said.
To comment, write Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111, e-mail milupdate@aol.com or go to www.militaryupdate.com.
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