Did Veterans Get Change at the VA or Just More of the Same?

Many veterans are asking themselves what happened to the promise of change in the Obama Administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs. The appointment of General Shinseki to be the Secretary of the VA, and Tammy Duckworth the stalwarts of demanding better treatment of America’s veterans, left us with the idea that finally we had advocate’s for better healthcare and a change to the way veterans compensation claims would be handled.

There are no safety nets for these veterans except family, and most families can not afford to make their house payments, car payments and feed them, so many of these veterans will lose their vehicles, their homes and in many cases divorced, many spouses can not deal with having an injured husband and wife, with no income, no health care and penniless. To then lose their family on top of all of this, will push many veterans to suicidal thoughts, can anyone expect less?

There is also a new push among military and VA doctors that are diagnosing people with PTSD symptoms as "malingerers", I will grant that with the money at stake with a diagnosis of PTSD  is a tremendous amount, in 1999 the VA was paying out about 1 billion a year in compensation for PTSD, by 2006 this amount had grown to over 4 billion a year and is still growing. Are there people who would try and take advantage of this system, of course there is, but how do you tell who actually has PTSD and who is really a "malingerer"? Is the military or the VA allowing a single physician or social worker to make this diagnosis or is it a team of people?

At the VAMC where I am treated it takes a three member team to make a diagnosis of PTSD, after an exhausting series of written exams MMPI, and others and then interviews from the various team members, pyschiatrists and pyschologists, before a diagnosis of PTSD can be confirmed, it takes about four months. Are the same standards being held for the "malingerer" label to be slapped on someone?

In my opinion they should use the same standard, as to be labeled a "malingerer" is actually the absolutely worst thing to happen to a combat veteran. Not only are you being told No, you don’t have PTSD, nor do you have a Personality Disorder which is a mental problem that usually starts in your childhood, which many soldiers have been diagnosed with. That in itself is a whole other can of worms. Not only is the veteran not going to be treated if they do have PTSD, now they have to deal with the aftermath of being labeled a "cheat" by the government, and once that label is attached, what will that do to the veteran in the years to come? I imagine the chance of getting a decent job working for the federal government or even most state government agencies will be lost, if the veteran is even capable of working, many PTSD veterans are not capable of being employed. The majority of them can, not all cases of PTSD have symptoms severe enough to be rated at the 100% rate, or even the 70% TDIU rate, which is still paid at the 100% rate.  Many are rated at 10%, 30% and even 50% and are employable.

There is no "cure" for PTSD, there are ways to mitigate the symptoms, ways for coping can be taught, and for many medications help. For some nothing seems to help and the veterans retreat to their homes and hibernate, they do not cope well in dealing with others, many shop at early morning hours if they shop at all, Wal-Mart at 3 am, or Kroger at 2 am, etc.

We veterans heard Dr Linda Blimes a co-author of the Three Trillion Dollar War was on the Obama VA trabsition team, she had testified to Congress that the claims process should be handled much like the IRS refund system is, pay the claims as they come in, and audit the ones that have red flags, it would be easier on all, the veterans and the VA itself, instead of making every veteran "prove" the medical problem really was caused by military service, and making veterans wait 6 months to a year for an initial award and up to four years for an appeal. Now we are reading that there are nearly one million claims in the appeals process at the Board of Veteran Appeals, where’s the change?

We know things do not change overnight, but we are not hearing from the people we thought would improve the plight of veterans, the words that indicate change is coming anytime soon or at all. Instead Tammy Duckworth is making statements that everything is great at the VA, and that they have to make sure that veterans are getting rated properly for PTSD or TBI, that doesn’t make sense, in the interview with CNN they asked why more than 150,000 veterans were diagnosed with PTSD yet they denied 90,000 of the claims. She never did answer why the veterans are not being helped, she is glossing over the fact that more than half of the veterans are being told "no money for you" and that most of the 90,000 veterans are now in the appeals process and will be waiting up to four years for a Board of Veteran Appeals to make a decision on their case. How is this change that is helping the veterans of the two wars we are now fighting, let alone the Vietnam veterans that are just now seeking help for PTSD forty years later, either the new  wars have  triggered the memories of Vietnam or the men and women of Vietnam are just now admitting to themselves that they have been coping their way thru life badly for the past forty years, and are just now admitting it. Even Max Cleland just sought treatment for PTSD and went public with it about three years ago, if a former Secretary of the VA and a Senator is finally admitting these type of mental health issues, is it any wonder other men and women are coming forward?

The interview is worth watching, what happened to the fierce advocate who changed the Illinois Veterans Agency, this doesn’t seem to be the same person.