Category: Entitlement Reforms

Fighting for Veterans: Taking Action on the Disability Claims Backlog

House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is spearheading

May 22, 2013 | 11 comments | by

Do Veterans Game the VA Disability System?

During my morning ritual of coffee and checking for daily updates on the Department of Veterans Affairs most recent follies, I came across an article published in 2005 by the British Journal of Psychiatry.  The particular search terms were a result of recent conversations I had with a number of veterans participating in the University of [...]

May 08, 2013 | 10 comments | by

The VBA Drops the Ball Once Again

Earlier this month, VA Undersecretary for Benefits Allison Hickey released an article about the effectiveness of the Department of Veterans Affairs new pilot programs to reduce benefit claim waiting times and increase accuracy rates.  Their new initiative is this: “Start processing the oldest claims first.” Since the majority of claims are still processed through paper [...]

Apr 30, 2013 | 12 comments | by

The "Other" Invisible Wound of War: Access to Mental Health Care

There has been a lot of concern (rightly so) recently over the “Invisible Wounds of War,” especially amongst those rabble rousers in the congressional committies for veterans affairs.  They’re very much concerned with the quality, access and timeliness of mental health care for veterans.  Congressional testimony less than a month ago praised the VA for their Community [...]

Apr 11, 2013 | 9 comments | by

Improved Accuracy Rates On VA Disability Claims? Or Not?

A few posts back I may have referred to Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) senior officials as “lumbering simpletons,” and for that I must apologize, because they have managed something truly spectacular.  Here are the accuracy averages for veteran disability claim approval rates in 2012, just to give you a picture of how well things [...]

Mar 19, 2013 | 9 comments | by

Disability Growth Disables the Country

Special blog post by Lewis Warne, an NCPA research associate. Social Security Disability enrollment for workers, excluding disabled children and disabled widow(er)s, is growing much faster than the working age population. Since 1991, workers on disability increased almost 170 percent, from 3,194,938 to 8,575,544 In the same period, the writing my essay population between 18-64 [...]

Jan 02, 2013 | 14 comments | by

Unemployment is Holding, but Disability is Climbing…

I will keep this cialis low price short at the risk of repeating myself, but

Jul 06, 2012 | 2 comments | by

‘Tis the Season to Be Weary…of Jobless Numbers

If Black Friday was last week, “gray Friday” is today. The news is that unemployment dropped to 8.6 percent in November, from 9 percent the mo buy generic viagra nth before. Sounds promising. What happened? Could it reflect the gainful seasonal employment of department store Santas? Not exactly. While 120,000 jobs were added last month, [...]

Dec 02, 2011 | 5 comments | by