When will the Chicken(hawks) Come Home to Roost?

140108 When will the chickens come home to roost

Or are they already here?

The past few years have seen a lot of changes with VA, and it looks like the game of cat and mouse is continuing with benefits.

I like to call it the good old game of hide the pea, shell game, whatever you like. What we are seeing is the federal government clamping down on veterans benefits and program like ours.

This is just a hunch, but I believe VA bean counters are figuring out ways on a daily basis to hide the pea in the form of writing regulations that are impossible to implement. The result is a total frustration of purpose.

For those who are naysayers, this is not the first time our government has tried to save money on the backs of veterans. It has been going on since the inception of our country.

After the Revolutionary War, veterans fought for Congress to honor its agreements to those who fought in the war. Luckily, back then, many of those in political office were also Founding Fathers and former servicemembers.

After every major period of war, America has been rather quick to forget her promises to those who served. Congress would in turn quickly start to forget their obligations and cut vet benefits.

The worst examples tend to follow periods of hard times. Following the Great Depression, President Roosevelt sought to fund his New Deal on the backs of veterans. Roosevelt thought it would be a great idea to change the laws to restrict benefit usage and payouts using an insurance model. The laws then reduced benefits by requiring a restrictive interpretations.

At that time, VA was just being formed from a melting post of numerous agencies into one, called the Veterans Administration. It was formerly the Veterans Bureau. And before that, it was called the Bureau of War Risk Insurance.

Tada! How about that? At least back in the day, America called a spade a spade. The Dept. of Veterans Affairs, at its root, was an insurance company. Today, while VA spends millions in ads attempting to appear benevolent, it is really just keeping benefits payouts at all time lows.

Today, I’ll give you one guess as to how VA views your claims and how VA creates its regulations – it views them with the purpose of restricting benefits to save money for other purposes.

I know this because VA has been hiring many contractors who are insurance experts to revise how the disability compensation system works. The same company that helped Allstate make tons of cash by denying customers was hired to create the new system for VBA. That’s right, McKinsey and Co. came to DC and created our DBQ system and the calculators your VA adjudicators are required to use when figuring out your complex claims.

At least now you know one more player who is taking your money, or at least keeping you from it.

If you are getting denied by your Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor or Disability Compensation, send us a note. I’d love to post your story.

Until next time, Good Luck!

Similar Posts

4 Comments

  1. Obama, the Democratic Party, the RINOS in the Republican Party just voted to punish retired veterans for their service.

    The only groups opposed to the cutting of veterans’ benefits are conservatives and the Tea Party.

    No surprise there. Conservatives and the Tea Party are the first to serve America and last to come home after wars. They are firm about defending veterans’ benefits.

    Democrats and RINOS are the real problem to America.

    Vote for a Democrat or a RINO and your vote will screw over a veteran!

    https://floppingaces.net/2014/01/11/veterans-take-it-in-the-shorts-thanks-democrats-and-one-republican-guest-post/

  2. I have wonderful, simple CHEAP ideas that would greatly improve the VA, but the VA itself is impossible to communicate with, and if you suggest to a member of Congress that the VA is not already perfect, they IMMEDIATELY shut you off and accuse you of heresy. Here are THREE cheap ideas that could positively change the culture of the VA. #1. Put all VA officials under oath when they testify before Congress. #2 Create a REAL independent VA Ombudsman system wherein SOMEBODY is on the vets side in run ins with the VA system. #3 Stop the VA from spending a PENNY on PR fluffery, much less the HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS per year they spend now. But, when I approach elected officials with these sorts of ideas they call me a chronic whiner and a dissident NUT.

  3. I am an old Vietnam vet, the one concession that I have NEVER been able to get out of the VA is that I am a person not a number. In my many, many years of dealing with VA, I have encountered 3,747, 824 VA rules, half of which were ILLEGAL and NONE of which favored the veteran. I would like to see a member of Congress with the courage to take on the VA and force the truth out of them, but none such ever seem to get elected.

  4. Ben, once again you have hit the proverbial nail on the head. The last 5 yrs, thats when I personally noticed and felt the crunch here at Bay Pines ( Pinellas County Fl. ) I have instructed my family, my attorney that unles it is truly life or death dO NOT take me to the V.A. One example I will give and I’m not proud of it, I am an alcoholic for over 35 yrs, even though I have been clean and sober, by the grace of god ( my belief )for 14 yrs and am a widowed, single parent with 2 teens. All the V.A. sees when they look at my chart is ” alcoholic ” not 14 yrs sober, they never write that down, I am immediately as a practicing alcoholic, ie…whatever the complaint, could be a broken arm, or recently a broken screw in my neck from an auto accident, they refused to help in any manner because it was an ” auto accident, I was a vet long before that )and tried to put me on the flight deck. They do not LISTEN to veterans, they look at a piece of paper, catagorize us then treat accordingly, we are simply NUMBERS no human beings, and the true but sad part is that most ( statistics say 95 + percent ) aren’t vets or in any way service connected. They have thier jobs, they care little for us. Until there is an accounting on veteran care by a non involved party nothing will ever change.

Comments are closed.