Letter to the editor: The VA is not your friend

The VA IS NOT your friend
Let me make it clear at the beginning of this opinion piece, when I say the Veterans Administration I am not referring to the rank and file VA employees, the overwhelming majority of whom do their utmost best to serve the veteran. What I am referring to is the organization, the leadership, and the rules and regulations.
This opinion piece also reflects the content of a letter I wrote to my Congressmen, Senators, the President, the Secretary of the VA, and the Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.
If you agree with my opinion, that veterans are not being treated fairly, I hope you’ll also write to these same people and encourage others to do the same.
The veteran’s benefits veterans have today are not the gift of benevolent government, they are the result of veterans banning together and demanding them.
That preamble being said, veterans, especially Vietnam Agent Orange (AO) veterans, need help against a new and unexpected opponent, the Veterans Administration. Thus far all the government and the present as well as past administrations have done with regards to the problems plaguing the VA is “rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic” without actually repairing the breeches in the hull.
The real, primary problems with the VA are not with the brick and mortar structures and not with the lack of personnel, these are the deck chairs.
The real problems are with the archaic and occasionally anti-veteran regulations and methodologies and with a seemingly pervasive attitude that a veteran’s conditions, when applying for benefits, are not service connected; an attitude upon which, in my opinion and by my experience, the VA proceeds apparently searching for reasons to disqualify rather than to qualify a veteran for compensation and this attitude encumbers the institution in providing true service to veterans.
There will be plenty of time to rearrange the deck chairs once the breeches have been repaired and the ship is righted.
Allow me to relate a real-life example that illustrates just two of the failures of the VA; illustrations which involve the methodology for the assignment of disability ratings associated with service connected conditions which, I believe and a majority of veterans believe intentionally, are designed to cheat veterans out of the disability payments they deserve.
This methodology has an especially negative effect on Vietnam veteran AO victims since they normally tend to have multiple AO caused conditions.
A Vietnam Agent Orange (AO) victim veteran received the following disability ratings from the VA:
– Tinnitus 10 percent
– Coronary artery disease 10 percent
– Diabetes mellitus type II 20 percent
– Peripheral neuropathy, right lower extremity affecting the femoral nerve 10 percent
– Peripheral neuropathy, right lower extremity 10 percent
– Peripheral neuropathy, left lower extremity affecting the femoral nerve 10 percent
– Peripheral neuropathy, left lower extremity 10 percent
– Left ear hearing loss service connected 0 percent
– Hypertension not service connected
If you, or any third grader, do a simple calculation of the percentages they add up to 80 percent, but because the VA uses a “combined” rating system instead of an “additive” rating system this veteran’s disability rating comes to 60 percent, in effect cheating him/her out of 20 percent.
The reason normally given for this disgraceful calculation methodology is that a beneficiary cannot receive compensation for more than 100 percent of disability, a reasoning which is a fallacy. A veteran with multiple service connected conditions can, in fact, be rated at greater than 100 percent; limiting the compensation to no more than 100 percent, which is logical considering that you cannot have more than 100 percent of anything, can be accomplished with a statement in its regulations such as “Compensation for service connected disabilities is limited to no more than 100 percent even though a total disability rating maybe be calculated to be more than 100 percent.” without depriving a veteran of the full, rightful compensation for his/her disabilities, without cheating him/her.
Adding insult to injury the VA further cheats the veteran in the example for service connected hearing loss while admitting it is service connected because it claims it does not interfere with his/her ability to fully comprehend speech, a fact the veteran asserts.
Additionally, this veteran and millions of other veteran AO victims are denied benefits for Agent Orange caused hypertension because of the VA’s continual refusal to admit a nexus between AO and hypertension even though many medical institutions, including the NIH, have found that the incidents of hypertension in the Vietnam AO exposed veteran community is markedly higher than in the general population.
In November of 2017 the veteran community fully expected that then Secretary Shulkin would finally accept hypertension as a “presumptive” condition, i.e. a condition which is presumed to have been a result of AO exposure, and which would make tens of thousands Vietnam veterans eligible for disability payments.
Instead Secretary Shulkin chose to “kick the can down the road” one more time claiming “more study” is necessary. The veteran community understands that “more study is necessary” is code for let’s drag this on until most of those affected die off and there is less budgetary impact.
While I can fully understand that since these issues deal with aspects of VA regulations and cannot be addressed on the basis of individual cases I also believe, however, that they can properly be addressed for all veterans through legislative action.
I also fully understand the budgetary impact of using the “additive” methodology and admitting there is a nexus between hypertension and AO exposure; I also believe it is totally unacceptable to deny these veterans benefits based on that premise when the American government pays billions, perhaps hundreds of billions, of dollars in tribute thinly disguised as “foreign aid” to nations, such as Pakistan, which hate us and give aid and comfort to our enemies and provides almost unconditional support to immigrants, illegal aliens, “dreamers” and “asylum” seekers.
The VA is not your friend at best the relationship between a veteran and the VA is a benevolent adversarial one.
If you are a veteran thinking of applying for disability veteran’s benefits you need to arm yourself and be prepared for an uphill fight; the first thing you need to know is not to try and go it alone, get a free advocate from the DAV, American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars or some other veteran service representative to advise you and file an intent to file (this is important as benefits are paid back to the date this is filed), the second is to get a diagnosis from your civilian Primary Care Provider and have him/her fill out the proper VA form(s) (like VA form 21-09060E-1 or 21-09060A-3, etc.) documenting your condition(s), then file your claim through your advocate and finally don’t take no for an answer file appeals and contact your representatives if necessary if you don’t think you are being treated fairly.
We answered the call and served our nation honorably and faithfully and deserve better than being short changed by the VA in our twilight years.
Lou Sansevero
Ferron, Utah