A few hard-nosed choices by the Bush administration in implementing laws to help disabled service members are being rolled back under congressional pressure and a new team of Pentagon policymakers.
One regulation change soon to take effect will allow more disability severance pay recipients to keep those lump-sum payments without worry that those dollars will be deducted from their Veterans Affairs disability compensation.
Another change will allow more service members separated since Sept. 11, 2001, with disability ratings up to 20 percent to see those ratings upgraded by the new Physical Disability Board of Review.
Here are more details:
Disability severance. The 2008 National Defense Authorization Act made several enhancements to disability severance paid to service members found medically unfit because of conditions rated up to 20 percent disabling. Two of these enhancements soon will affect more members separated on or after Jan. 28, 2008, the date the bill was signed.
The first deals with years of service used in calculating disability severance pay. Instead of actual years served, the 2008 law sets a minimum number of years to apply to the severance pay formula. No matter how long a member served before injury, at least six years will be used to calculate severance — if injury occurred in the line of duty in a combat zone or in performance of duty in combat-related operations. A new minimum of three years is being used to calculate severance for any other members.
The second enhancement deals with deduction of disability severance pay from VA disability compensation. Under the 2008 law, no deduction is required if the disability is incurred in the line of duty in a combat zone, or in performance of duty in combat-related operations.
In implementing these two changes, the Bush administration drew the ire of veterans’ service organizations by narrowly interpreting combat-related injuries to those incurred in a combat zone or in armed conflict.
What Congress intended, lawmakers have since made clear, was a broader definition that includes injuries during training or resulting from an “instrumentality of war” which can mean falls aboard ship or even a stateside traffic accident involving a military vehicle.
A revised regulation is now under final review in the Pentagon.
Expanded ratings review. The 2008 defense bill also directed the Department of Defense to establish a special board to review disability ratings below 30 percent given to members separated since the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. This responded to complaints that the services had low-balled ratings for members found medically unfit. A rating of 30 percent or higher from a service branch qualifies a member for disability retirement and a lifetime annuity, rather than severance pay.
As a new review board began accepting applications three months ago, retired Army Lt. Col. Michael Parker, an advocate for disabled veterans, sounded an alarm. Congress wanted the board to review disability cases with the same rating criteria used by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Parker said.
At first it didn’t. Then that was changed in a move that could have a significant effect on the number of rating adjustments, particular for conditions not rated high by the services including post-traumatic stress disorder and even sleep apnea.
So far more than 200 veterans have applied to have ratings reviewed. They are being advised now to supply information on all disabilities. The pool of veterans eligible to have disability separations since Sept. 11 reviewed is estimated to be as large as 90,000.
The review board’s Web site is www.health.mil/Pages/Page.aspx?ID=19. Its mailing address is: SAF/MRBR, 550 C Street West, Suite 41, Randolph AFB, Texas 78150-4743.
Meurlin also announced that defense officials will propose legislation to pay family caregivers of catastrophically injured service members — usually mothers or spouses — monthly compensation. The amount would equal what home health care aides are paid in the private sector.
E-mail milupdate@aol.com, write to Military Update, P.O. Box 231111, Centreville, VA, 20120-1111.
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