US Veterans - Shinseki: Backlog means VA reaching more vets

The rising mountain of veterans’ disability claims isn’t the sign of a dysfunctional government, but of one that has greatly expanded the number of people it is trying to help, Veterans Affairs Department secretary Eric Shinseki said Tuesday.

Appearing before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in an election-year address aimed at showing the best side of the Obama administration’s policies, Shinseki said the total inventory of veterans’ claims was 400,000 when the administration began and is about 880,000 today.

The growth, he said, “is what happens when we increase access.” While it has meant some veterans are waiting longer for their benefits to start, “it was the right thing to do,” he said

“In 2009, there were over 23 million living veterans in this country, but only 7.4 million of them were enrolled in VA health care, and only 3 million were receiving compensation and pension benefits from VA,” he said. “We had an outreach problem: Many didn’t know about VA or their possible benefits. We had an access problem: Even if they knew about us, they had difficulty getting the services they needed.”

VA is moving to take care of its expanded demand, he said, with goals of eliminating the backlog in disability claims and ending veterans’ homelessness in 2015, and expanding the reach of programs even more. “One-third market penetration is not good enough.”

Shinseki said VA is “working hard and smart” to eliminate the claims backlog, with a goal by 2015 of having all claims processed within 125 days with 98 percent accuracy.