VA benefits reform — Congress is trapped in a hamster wheel

SSG Robert Mark Odom
The “hamster wheel” is a familiar metaphor for those who work within the Veterans Affairs (VA) disability benefits system. Gaining popularity after its use in a 2006 decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims, it is most often used to describe the endless cycle of remanding a veteran’s claim before a final decision is reached.

However, the hamster wheel metaphor applies to policy and legislative analysis about the structure of the benefits system just as much as it applies to individual claimants. While recent legislative actions such as the Appeals Modernization Act have taken steps to provide an off ramp from the hamster wheel for individuals, overarching legislation that structurally reforms the overall benefits process to the benefit of all veterans is still stuck in a hamster wheel of its own.

Discussion as to how to disembark from the hamster wheel of structural legislative reform is currently warranted, because VA recently announced that it was initiating the process for establishing presumptive benefits for certain respiratory conditions caused by toxic exposure during the recent conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan and surrounding areas.

Although this action is a welcome sign for many veterans who have argued that recognition of respiratory illnesses due to burn pits is long-overdue, it also exacerbates another long-standing problem for VA: managing its backlog of disability claims.

According to the 2015 VA Claims Backlog Working Group Report, “Since at least 1993, the VA has underperformed in its duties to provide timely and accurate disability compensation claims for Veterans.”

Although VA has made significant progress in addressing its claims backlog in recent years, typically, when new presumptive benefits are recognized, VA’s backlog of disability claims increases.

For example, when VA added several new presumptive benefits related to Agent Orange exposure in 2009, its backlog of disability claims more than doubled in size in only four months.

Keep us posted / filled in .