Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:58:59 EST Senators seek funds for concurrent receipt The Senate Armed Services Committee has given a sliver of hope to some disabled military retirees still waiting for the right to receive their full military retirement pay and veterans disability compensation.The committee is asking the Senate Budget Committee to make adjustments in the 2011 federal budget to accommodate $264 million in additional benefits in 2011 and $5.4 billion over the next 10 years to allow an expansion of “concurrent receipt.”The request comes in the committee’s letter to the Senate Budget Committee making recommendations about the $708 billion defense budget for 2011.A bipartisan letter signed by committee chairman Send. Carl Levin, D-Mich., and ranking Republican John McCain, R-Ariz., warns against cutting the Obama administration’s proposed defense budget.“We note that after almost a decade of combat operations, the readiness of our nondeployed force has declined due to equipment being taken to support deploying units, in addition to a heavy emphasis being placed on training for counterinsurgency operations versus training for full-spectrum operations,” the letter says.“We urge the budget committee to fully support the administration’s national defense budget request so that we can assist the department in restoring and protecting vital readiness accounts.”On concurrent receipt, the Obama administration proposes to add $264 million into the military retirement trust fund in 2011 so it can begin providing concurrent receipt of retired pay and disability pay to people who received medical retirement from the military with fewer than 20 years of service.Over five years, the administration wants to phase in concurrent receipt for people receiving military disability retired pay, ultimately providing full military and veterans benefits to all disabled retirees.The problem with the Obama administration’s proposal is that it does not comply with congressional budget procedures; it does not specifically identify a source of the money that would be spent on new retiree benefits. This same problem prevented Congress from passing a similar proposal last year.Levin and McCain told the budget committee they support providing full concurrent receipt, and hope the budget committee can identify offsets in the budget to cover the costs.The Levin-McCain letter was sent to the budget committee on March 5 but released only late Tuesday.

Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:41:53 EST Plan would expand leave for some families Military family members who are ineligible for family and medical leave still could get time off for deployment-related issues under potentially controversial legislation pending before two congressional committees.The Military Family Leave Act would provide up to two weeks of leave — unpaid if an employer chooses — to people not covered by the military leave provisions of the existing FMLA.Under current law, employees can be excluded if they have not worked for a year or longer for their current employer, have not worked a minimum of 1,250 hours for their current employer in the last 12 months, or work for a business that has fewer than 50 employees in a 75-mile radius.The two weeks off under the pending bill would be available to spouses, children or parents of anyone deployed on a contingency operation or mobilized in support of a contingency operation.While endorsed by Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America and Veterans of Foreign Wars, the proposal is not supported by the Military Coalition, a group of more than 30 military-related organizations.“We worry that forcing small businesses [to grant the time off] could be a disincentive to hiring that would work against families,” said a coalition member who works on family issues and asked not to be named.“There was good reason that the original Family and Medical Leave Act is established the way it is, with small businesses exempt. Having even a few employees away can hurt a small business far more than a large one,” the family policy expert said.The effect on businesses was not mentioned during a Feb. 25 hearing of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee’s economic opportunity panel when the House version of the bill, HR 3247, was discussed.Bill sponsor Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said he is trying to extend to people exempt from the FMLA some of the benefits provided last year, when military provisions were approved that grant up to 26 weeks of unpaid leave for families of deployed or seriously injured troops, and up to 12 weeks for other deployment-related issues.“A significant number of military spouses work for small businesses, work part time ... or have less than one year with a company due to recent moves or reassignments,” Smith said.The Senate version of the bill, S 1441, sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., was referred to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which has taken no action. That is one of the panels responsible for the Family and Medical Leave Act, and it pays close attention to the concerns of businesses.

Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:18:04 EST Enrollment surge forced tuition program to halt An abrupt sixfold increase in the number of military spouses enrolling in the My Career Advancement Account program caused the sudden halt of the program Feb. 16, according to a defense official.About 95,000 spouses enrolled in the first six weeks of the year for a program that, until then, rarely received more than 10,000 applications a month. The spike overwhelmed the system and threatened to drain the program’s budget, said Tommy Thomas, deputy undersecretary of defense for military community and family policy.Military spouses — who were depending on the program to help pay for classes for which they already had registered — could not be told about the shutdown ahead of time because “given the gravity of the situation, there was no time for a warning,” Pentagon spokeswoman Air Force Maj. April Cunningham said.The online MyCAA program provides up to $6,000 in tuition assistance to help spouses pursue education, training, licenses, certificates and degrees leading to portable careers.Thomas said the halt is temporary and “was done in the best interest of all.” Officials said they hope to resume the program in several months, though no date has been set.The MyCAA program expanded last March after a limited pilot program. Of the 133,000 spouses who applied for the program before the surge of applications early this year, 98,000 had been approved for assistance.Frustrated spouses learned about the shutdown just as they tried to request funding for classes that start within a month. They cannot request payment for classes for which they have already registered.Scrambling to come up with moneySome spouses said they had reduced financial aid loans from other sources in expectation of getting funding from MyCAA, and they now must scramble to figure out if they can come up with money for their education.Spouses should call Military OneSource at 800-342-9647 and “request consultation with a career counselor to discuss alternative funding options,” Cunningham said — although many spouses who have called say they’ve been unable to get their questions answered.In the days immediately following the halt of the program, Thomas acknowledged receiving “concerns expressed by many program participants.”After some spouses from Virginia Beach, Va., contacted Rep. Glenn Nye, D-Va., he sent a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates, noting that thousands of spouses are waiting for approval and assistance from MyCAA.After receiving information from defense officials, Nye said in a statement that “the Pentagon needs to take action to help military spouses who were counting on this program so they aren’t forced to cancel or postpone their education plans.”But some spouses are still upset. One group is organizing a demonstration in Norfolk, Va.“If we don’t fight for ourselves, nobody’s going to fight for us,” said Navy wife Jacquelynne Blazon, a demonstration organizer and student at Tidewater Community College who faces a cutoff in her MyCAA funding.“I don’t feel we’re being told the honest truth,” she said. “I cannot fathom for a millisecond that [the Defense Department], in creating this program, couldn’t foresee that this wasn’t going to take off” in popularity.A date for the demonstration has not been set.“Something happened, but that doesn’t mean their promise to us shouldn’t be honored,” said Blazon, whose husband is an E-5 assigned to Naval Station Norfolk. “And not a single woman I’ve talked to has been notified. That’s criminal.”

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:51:04 EST Benefits reconsidered for ill Gulf War vets WASHINGTON — The Veterans Affairs Department says it will look again at the rejected claims of veterans who say their Gulf War service caused a mysterious illness, the first step toward potentially compensating them nearly two decades after the war ended.VA Secretary Eric Shinseki said the decision is part of a “fresh, bold look” his department is taking to help veterans who have what’s commonly called “Gulf War illness” and have long felt the government did little to help them. The VA says it also plans to improve training for medical staff who work with Gulf War vets, to make sure they do not simply tell vets that their symptoms are imaginary — as has happened to many over the years.“I’m hoping they’ll be enthused by the fact that this ... challenges all the assumptions that have been there for 20 years,” Shinseki told the Associated Press in an interview.The changes reflect a significant shift in how the VA may ultimately care for some 700,000 veterans who served in the Gulf War. They also could improve the way the department handles war-related illnesses suffered by future veterans, because Shinseki said he wants standards put in place that don’t leave veterans waiting decades for answers to what ails them.The decision comes four months after Shinseki opened the door for about 200,000 Vietnam veterans to receive service-related compensation for three illnesses stemming from exposure to the Agent Orange herbicide.About 175,000 to 210,000 Gulf War veterans have come down with a pattern of symptoms ranging from mild to severe that include rashes, headaches, memory problems, joint and muscle pain, sleep issues and gastrointestinal problems, according to a 2008 congressionally mandated committee that based the estimate on earlier studies.But what exactly caused the symptoms has long been unanswered. Independent scientists have pointed to pesticide and pyridostigmine bromide pills, given to protect troops from nerve agents, as probable culprits. The 2008 report noted that since 1994, $340 million has been spent on government research into the illness, but little has focused on treatments.Steve Robertson, legislative director of the American Legion and a Gulf War veteran who has struggled with his own health issues such as joint problems and chronic fatigue, said Friday the decision is welcome news.“I can assure that there are Gulf War veterans who have been fighting this issue since 1991-92,” Robertson said. “The ones I’ve talked to are very, very upset that they’ve had to fight this battle.”James Bunker, president of the nonprofit National Gulf War Resource Center, also praised the decision but said he hopes the claims processors will be better trained so they don’t reject the same claims again, turning the process into “something that had lifted the hopes of many veterans just to let them down again.”Last week, Shinseki and Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs committee, met privately in Charleston, W.Va., with several Gulf War veterans. In an interview after the meeting, Rockefeller said that Shinseki’s background as a former Army chief of staff made the changes possible. He said either the military has been reluctant over the years to release paperwork related to the war or kept poor records about exposures in the war zone, which made it harder for the veterans to prove they needed help.“The paperwork isn’t very accurate, but the pain is very real,” Rockefeller said.Shinseki has publicly wondered why there are still so many unanswered questions about Gulf War illness, as stricken veterans’ conditions have only worsened with age.Last fall, he appointed a task force led by his chief of staff, John Gingrich, a retired Army colonel who commanded a field artillery battalion in the 1991 war, to review benefits and care for Gulf War veterans. The changes stem from the task force’s work.Gingrich said he feels a personal stake because some of his own men who were healthy during the war are dealing with these health problems. Gingrich said the VA isn’t giving a new benefit to Gulf War veterans, just making sure the claims they submitted were done correctly.A law enacted in 1994 allows the VA to pay compensation to Gulf War veterans with certain chronic disabilities from illnesses the VA could not diagnosis. More than 3,400 Gulf War have qualified for benefits under this category, according to the VA.The VA doesn’t have an estimate of the number of veterans who may be affected, but it could be in the thousands.Of those who deployed in the Gulf War, 300,000 submitted claims, according to the VA. About 14 percent were rejected, while the rest received compensation for at least one condition.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:06:41 EST Va. Beach lawmaker to hold MyCAA discussion Rep. Glenn Nye, D-Va., will hold a roundtable meeting at 4 p.m. Sunday at his Virginia Beach office to hear from local military spouses affected by the Defense Department’s sudden halt of a tuition assistance program that paid up to $6,000 for education, training, licenses, certificates and degrees leading to portable careers.The military spouse My Career Advancement Account program was halted suddenly Feb. 16, and many spouses have said they found out about it at the worst time — when they were trying to apply for funding to be sent to their schools for courses that had already been approved by the Defense Department.“I want to hear from military spouses who were counting on this program, so I can take their stories back to Washington and fight to get MyCAA restored as quickly as possible,” Nye said in a statement announcing the meeting.Any spouse affected by the suspension of these accounts is welcome to attend, said Nye’s spokesman Clark Pettig.The office is located at 4772 Euclid Road, Suite E, Virginia Beach.

Fri, 26 Feb 2010 12:50:55 EST New hires won’t speed VA claims soon Key senators said Friday they are pleased that the Veterans Affairs Department is hiring more than 4,000 more claims processors, but they are worried this won’t result in most veterans getting their disability benefits any faster.VA Secretary Eric Shinseki acknowledged that immediate progress might be elusive. It will take up to two years to fully train the new workers, even as the number of claims being filed continues to climb, he said in testimony before the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.In 2009, VA received more than 1 million disability claims, and expects a 13 percent increase this year and an 11 percent increase in 2011, he said. That does not include an additional one-time flood of claims expected in 2011 stemming from an expansion of Agent Orange-related claims from Vietnam veterans, he said.That alone could result in 228,000 claims, he said.The 2011 VA budget includes an increase of 4,048 full-time equivalent positions for claims processors, a number that includes making permanent some temporary positions.Even with those increases, VA officials have warned that the average waiting time for claims is expected to grow from 161 days today to 190 days in 2011. But if the extra claims workers were not hired, the average wait would be 250 days, officials said.Veterans’ committee members are prepared for the temporary increase in the belief that things will get better after the flood of Agent Orange claims is processed and after the new workers are fully trained.But there is a fear that some bottlenecks that have not been addressed could remain in the claims process. Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., said he is concerned that there is no increase in the budget for people who handle appeals if a veteran is dissatisfied with the initial decision on a claim.Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, said he was worried that VA might push too hard to process claims at the expense of making more mistakes, a problem that Shinseki acknowledged could happen if VA doesn’t maintain an emphasis on quality.John Wilson of Disabled American Veterans said he believes VA will have enough people to process claims with the new hires if they are properly trained.“Training ... has not been a high enough priority in VA,” Wilson said.VA also lacks a strong quality control procedure on claims to identify mistakes, including who is making them, so corrective action can be taken, he said.Shinseki said hiring more people was a temporary “brute force” response to an increase in claims, and that the long-term answer to keeping up with disability requests is to have a mostly automated process.Several pilot projects are underway in that area, he said.