About 20% of the soldiers who have served in Iraq and 12% of those who have served in Afghanistan suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). A little over 210,000 veterans receive disability payments for PTSD from the government, costing $4.3 billion last year.
Not all who claim PTSD are approved for benefits. Since there is no standardized process for deciding a particular case, the odds of approval vary from state to state. The VA, as the result of an internal study, feels that some of those receiving benefits shouldn't be. In fact, they've estimated that 2.5% of the claims are potentially fraudulent. Thus, they have decided to review the cases of the 72,000 soldiers who are receiving the maximum benefit of just under $3000 a month. They may be right in their estimate of fraud, but that's due to the claims examiners being fooled. One question: Since the approval of claims is a function of where the claim originates rather than the severity of the problem, why is the VA not reviewing cases of those who have been denied benefits? If the claims examiners screwed up in approvals, it's likely they also screwed up in denials as well.
In the current review, veterans will have to prove that a specific incident was the cause of their PTSD. I doubt that reliving their war experience is a pleasant experience for anyone, even those who do not suffer from PTSD. Is this the right way to treat our veterans? There are a heck of a lot more places to cut the budget without insulting those who gave their all for us. How much will this review cost? They'd be better off putting the money into standardizing the claims review process.
1 comment:
I'm no expert on PTSD, but it seems to me quite likely that many soldiers could contract it over a protracted period - perhaps involving numerous 'minor' incidents rather than one 'major' event. I know that many British soldiers suffered 'shell-shock', as it later came to be known, from WW1. Presumably that would be called PTSD today. Then it was simply called cowardice. Many were shot at dawn by their own pals, destined to a similar fate if they refused to comply.
War was a bloody business then, and it still is.
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