The Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission
Much that is negative and unfortunately ad hominem has been said on the Internet and elsewhere regarding the Commission and the Commissioners in recent months, particularly in the last few weeks regarding this issue of whether you are to examine SSDI. The fear of an “offset” only adds to an atmosphere that has been increasingly poisoned ever since the Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) mischaracterized their own report on the VA claims process in May of 2005, and improperly used the word “fraud” nine times in their public briefing. I feel compelled to state that VVA has faith in the honesty, good faith, and good will of each of you individually, although we are much less sure of the process, or that this is a realistic undertaking to accomplish the mission in the way you have publicly stated you wish to do so. VVA does believe that your efforts and organizational ability to communicate must be greatly enhanced, and soon, for veterans to have any confidence in the process. VVA also reiterates our verbal request that all transcripts of hearings and meetings be posted on the Internet in a timely manner, VVA also urges that efforts to publicize your hearings as you move about the country, as well as here in the Washington area, be done much more effectively. There simply cannot be too much transparency in this process from our perspective.As to the matter at hand, I will be brief in noting that there are five major points VVA strongly believes you should consider before you vote as to whether to proceed in regard to tackling yet another major area, that of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) later today. The first major point is the extremely vital one that VVA brought to your attention last summer in our statement of July 22, 2005. * Our primary recommendation to the Commission is that the current VA compensation and pension system is fundamentally a good one; one that needs to be executed, updated, fine-tuned and funded properly. Such being the case, there is no need to dismantle, revise or otherwise modify the essential elements of service-connected compensation, such as the definitions of who is a “veteran” for purposes of eligibility or “service-connected disability” for purposes of entitlement to benefits. VVA reiterated this point in our statement of September 15, 2005 when we noted: * VVA strongly urges that you create a fourth subcommittee to generate research topics as to the mechanism(s) available to actually implement any recommendations that this Commission may make, or that ultimately may be enacted into law. As stated above, VVA maintains that the basic assumptions and premises of the compensation system are sound. The problem is the way the laws are administered, and a rating schedule that needs to be updated. The Compensation
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