Potential Va Benefits Chief Has New Ideas

[allan]

-----Original Message-----

From: D. Mac Donald [mailto:dmac107@dlm.hrcoxmail.com]

Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 10:12 AM

To: dav@davchpt13.hrcoxmail.com

Cc: colonel-dan@sbcglobal.net

Subject: Potential VA benefits chief has new ideas

Posted by: "Robert F. White" etihwr2@verizon.net myfranks

Mon Feb 2, 2009 9:18 pm (PST)

http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/02/...claims_020209w/

Potential VA benefits chief has new ideas

By Rick Maze - Staff writer

Posted : Monday Feb 2, 2009 17:36:26 EST

A Harvard University researcher with some radical ideas about how to reduce

the backlog of veterans disability claims appears to be in line to head the

Veterans Benefits Administration.

Linda Blimes, a public policy lecturer and research at Harvard's Kennedy

School of Government, wants the Department of Veterans Affairs to operate

like the Internal Revenue Service - on an honor system that trusts veterans

claiming service-connected disabilities. All veterans claims would be

approved as soon as they are filed, with a random audit conducted to "weed

out and deter fraudulent claims," Blimes told the House Veterans' Affairs

Committee in testimony in 2008.

Ninety percent of veterans disability claims end up being paid after they

make it through the system, she said - proof, she said, that most veterans

are asking only for what they deserve.

Immediate payment of at least a minimum benefit would help to reduce the

average 180-day waiting time for initial benefits claims to be processed and

allow VA to redeploy the employees processing those claims to work on more

complicated appeals, she said.

Blimes also has talked of a vastly simplified disability rating system that

would have just four ratings instead of the current 10 for service-connected

disabilities and illnesses.

Blimes has not been formally announced as a nominee, but her name is being

circulated among lawmakers and congressional staff in what has become a

standard procedure to determine whether there is any strong opposition to

her taking the key post.

Her idea of a streamlined claims process has some prominent supporters,

among them Rep. Bob Filner, D-Calif., the House Veterans Affairs Committee

chairman who has talked of automatic claims approval as a way to quickly

eliminate the claims backlog.

Retired Rear Adm. Patrick Dunne, a holdover from the Bush administration,

has stayed on to run the VBA until a successor is named. He is not the only

VA executive who has stayed around; Dr. Michael Kussman also remains as VA's

undersecretary for health.

In addition to Blimes, another name being circulated is that of disabled

Iraq war veteran Tammy Duckworth, who could become VA's chief of

intergovernmental affairs. Duckworth, the Illinois director of veterans

affairs, is closely associated with President Barack Obama.

On Friday, the White House announced its intention to nominate W. Scott

Gould, a former Navy Reserve intelligence officer, to be VA deputy secretary

under retired Army Gen. Eric Shinseki, the former Army chief of staff

recently named to head VA.

Gould does not have experience running veterans programs, but he was

co-chairman of the review team that looked at VA for Obama and has

experience in trying to centralize and streamline organizations. Gould is

vice president for public sector strategy at IBM Global Business Services.

Gould is married to Michelle Flournoy, whom Obama has nominated to be

undersecretary of defense for policy.

In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed

without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the

included information for research and educational purposes. Reference:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml

__._,_.___"Keep on, Keepin' on"

Dan Cedusky, Champaign IL "Colonel Dan"

See my web site at:

http://www.angelfire.com/il2/VeteranIssues/

[Quint7]

Clown, you took my thoughts and posting and explained my feelings about this better than I did. Good job. I would say that this is all just rumor right now, so hopefully nobody will take any offense to any replies.

[Pete53]

As most of us know change does not come easy at the VA but the ideas can lead to improvement. When my wife started getting ChampVA they cut anyone who reached 65 off and than they made ChampVA last for life a major improvement in my opinion.

So from her ideas may come a plan to make it better cause the VA claims process could not be much worse in my opinion.

It took me over 5 years to obtain my 100% award and I should have gotten it in a few months. It cost me a lot of pain and suffering, it cost my kids benefits that they never got but we survived.

Edited February 15, 2009 by Pete53

[Commander Bob]

I am just glad that someone is trying to think outside the box. The VA is broken. It has been broken for many years. As a combat wounded veteran, who has been standing in line with a wooden leg for decades, I favor a change.

[Quint7]

Bob and Pete, I agree with both of you, but I think that the one thing I have learned from 6 years in the Marines, 12 years as a Professional firefighter and 3 years on my Union's executive board is that the people who are receiving benefits or services or whatever are the ones with the easy, cheap solutions. It is the higherups, the politicos, the people with an agenda that get put in charge of changes and it usually ends up worse than before.

Congress should convine some type of committee made up of vets of all ages and disabilites to figure out what is wrong and needs fixing.

I'm sick of seeing some retired Rear Admiral or Colonel or whatever on the news talking about how and what and why for the war or whatever. I don't even want the opinion of Senior NCO's. I want troops..... guys (and gals!) that are dealing with stuff every day. Gimme a foul mouthed Corporal and a SSgt. any day of the week. Same with my work. Chiefs muck everything up and the officers that have their ear are the ones more worried about getting promoted than if I go home safely at the end of my shift.

Sorry......... bad day.

[gp747]

Scooby:

Is there a reason that you POST IN CAPS? Please do not do it as many on internet consider it rude.

Pete

that was not supposed to be in caps ,i do not know what happened ,i thought i had clicked on the b up above ,and everyone said that was alright. i do not see any reason for someone to consider it rude ,but i guess that is some kind of computer ethics conjured up somewhere . i just do not see it as rude. my understanding people consider it yelling if there is such at thing on a computer with written dialog.

[Commander Bob]

that was not supposed to be in caps ,i do not know what happened ,i thought i had clicked on the b up above ,and everyone said that was alright. i do not see any reason for someone to consider it rude ,but i guess that is some kind of computer ethics conjured up somewhere . i just do not see it as rude. my understanding people consider it yelling if there is such at thing on a computer with written dialog.

So, using caps is like yelling??? I never knew that. I can see how it makes sense in the virtual world of the Internet. Oh well, HAVE A NICE DAY.