Bacon's Rebellion

‘Shameful’ Redux

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

In a letter signed by all of Virginia’s congressional delegation except Eric Cantor, Congressman Rick Boucher, of the Fightin’ Ninth, has asked the Veterans Administration for a formal explanation of Virginia’s next-to-last ranking in average compensation for disabled veterans–a matter first reported in Virginia here at Bacon’s Rebellion (See ‘Shameful’ post of July 16, 2005). Additionally, an aide to U. S. Senator George Allen reports that Allen’s office has filed a similar inquiry.

Share this article

ADVERTISEMENT

(comments below)

Comments

Comments

  1. Becky Dale Avatar
    Becky Dale

    The VA is already studying disparity issues, as you can see in these two reports (May 2005):
    http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05655t.pdf

    http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d05749t.pdf

    If Virginia has more veterans than other states (we probably do) and if many of them have minor disabilities instead of major ones (one report says that most claims are for minor disabilities), then naturally the average disability pay would be less than in other states. There is only a problem if a disability here gets a lower rate than the same disability would in another state. There is no way to know that just by looking at average disability pay.

    The reports note that post-traumatic stress syndrome is difficult to rate; it is a subjective assessment and different people will make different judgments on how much of a disability it is.

  2. Will Vehrs Avatar
    Will Vehrs

    Becky, I suggested some similar possibilities when this initially came up and they were not well-received.

    I will await the report to see if the disparity is “innocent” or if there are real equality issues.

  3. Walt Ball Avatar
    Walt Ball

    Does anyone have a “no spin” explanation as to why Cantor would not sign? Connected to his leadership spot I’d assume.

  4. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Becky, Thanks for getting these perspective out on the table. In the end, Barnie may prove to be right. But as Will and I have both argued, let’s get all the facts on the table before we jump to conclusions. Hopefully, the VA will respond to Virginia’s congressional delegation with hard numbers we can use to see if the state disparities are meaningful…. Of course, someone in the blogging community will have to stay on top of the issue and obtain a copy of the VA’s response.

  5. criticallythinking Avatar
    criticallythinking

    Of course I don’t want Virginia to be next to last.

    But we don’t want Veterans to be shortchanged in any state of the Union. So I propose we pass a law that prohibits any state from spending less than the 10th-lowest state.

    Surely no State could object to being forced to spend enough to keep from being in the bottom 20% of states in spending.

    Obviously it would be best if no state was below the median spending, because none of our Veterans deserve lower than average care. But given the constraints of some state budgets, keeping all the states out of the bottom 20% is the best we can do.

    How could anybody be against such a common-sense measure to ensure that no veteran is treated to the worst care in the country.

    And anyway, how much could it possibly costs to make sure that no state is in the bottom 20% of states in spending for Veteran care?

    (do I need a sarcasm alert?)

  6. Becky Dale Avatar
    Becky Dale

    Criticially thinking: We’re talking about federal aid, not state aid. The Veterans Administration rates disabilities by percentages (10%, 50%, etc.) and every vet rated at a certain percentage gets the same aid all over the country. But there are 57 offices making these rating decisions and so they vary. The issue is how to make them consistent.

    One thing I read was interesting: the VA also hands out 0% disability ratings. The vets getting those don’t get payments but just having that rating is useful in other ways to them. If those people are included in the totals of “disabled” vets, then if a number of them are living in a state, that could lower the average disability pay for the state. I don’t know if they’re added in or not.

    I got your point, by the way, which can be used in talking about other comparisons between states. How dare we have anything below average. We should be like Lake Wobegon where all the children are above average.

Leave a Reply

ADVERTISEMENT