Raise?

[luvHIM]

Is there a raise this year? Was talking with someone who is a recent separation from Army and it was suggested that a raise is in the works this year...just wondering.

Happy New Year!

[free_spirit_etc]

name='broncovet' date='Dec 31 2009, 08:50 PM' post='182920'

This year, instead of a pay raise, the VA is giving Veterans the warm fuzzy feeling that VA executives and government contractors got the pay raise intended for Veterans instead. Veterans and social security recipients will need a warm fuzzy feeling since that will be the only heat bill they can afford this year. The average disabled Veteran, in Ohio, gets a whopping $674 per month to try to pay his bills $(8090 per year) . Altho this article was dated last year, since there was no raise, the average disabled Veteran will need to try to survive again on $674 per month this year, even tho they probably could not survive on that last year either.

Source: Cleveland Plains Dealer article below:

Injured Ohio veterans get 2nd-lowest disability payments in nation

Broncovet,

This is an interesting article. Ohio vets get the second lowest average disability payments in the nation. The last I knew, Illinois (my state) actually placed bottom.

I am not following the connection that you made though, that the average disabled vet in Ohio is trying to survive on $674 a month. I would think many of these vets have a job and partial disability.

But yes, there is a problem with certain areas having lower ratings overall for there vets. So a vet in Ohio is more likely to have a lower rating on their disabilities than a vet in other states (except Illinois :P ).

I remember when my husband was alive they had to have a special outreach program for vets in this region because of the disparity in benefits between this region and the rest of the country - and the fact that there was no way to logically explain why vets in this region had lower ratings. As part of the outreach they were SUPPOSED to send all vets a letter and inform them that if they thought they should have a higher rating, they could request to have their case reviewed through this special outreach.

My husband did NOT get the letter, but we found the info online and sent them an IRIS. They just sent back a copy and pasted thing that said that ratings were based on the level of disability, yadayadayadayada.

I should see if I can locate that program and my husband's IRIS. I would think that should be considered a request for increase.

Free

Edited January 2, 2010 by free_spirit_etc

[jbasser]

Good article Broncovet.

There is only one thing wrong with it and I am not being negative.

The States do not control VA comp payments. They never will as it is a federal benefit.

This lady's numbers and facts are correct but her assumptions are completely wrong.

Common sense tells us that Ohio has a very large population with the big cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and ECT.

New Mexico has 1 large city and a Population total that is a fraction of Ohio's.

The division of the money from state to state is not feasable for the differences in population will show huge discrepencies as the lower population states will average out higher than the highly populated states like Ohio, Florida, California, Illinios and New York.

For example, Ohio may have 1 million Vets at 10 percent. New mexico may have ten thousand.So it is a numbers game.

J

[jerrbilly]

Great point!!!

Good article Broncovet.

There is only one thing wrong with it and I am not being negative.

The States do not control VA comp payments. They never will as it is a federal benefit.

This lady's numbers and facts are correct but her assumptions are completely wrong.

Common sense tells us that Ohio has a very large population with the big cities of Cincinnati, Cleveland, and ECT.

New Mexico has 1 large city and a Population total that is a fraction of Ohio's.

The division of the money from state to state is not feasable for the differences in population will show huge discrepencies as the lower population states will average out higher than the highly populated states like Ohio, Florida, California, Illinios and New York.

For example, Ohio may have 1 million Vets at 10 percent. New mexico may have ten thousand.So it is a numbers game.

J

[broncovet]

The numbers quoted in the article are average per Veteran in each state. They are a reflection of the VA benefit awards in each respective state. A 100% disabled Veteran gets the same disability compensation in any of the 50 states. However, when some places have a very low average this means that some states are "lowballing the compensation", that is, if a rater rated a Veteran at 70% in New Mexico, he would probably be rated at 30% in Ohio. The disability ratings percentages are a judgement call by the rating specialist...it just so happens that some states rating specialists are more generous with their rating evaluations than are other states.

As far as New Mexico having a smaller population than Ohio, of course that is true. One of the errors of logic is to base an assumption on too small of a sample size. The classic example of this is : I have 3 rocks..all of them are round, therefore all rocks in the world are round. The percentage of rocks in the shape of a knife is probably higher in New Mexico than in Ohio, because much of New Mexico was used as an Indian reservation, not because New Mexico has more land area than Ohio.

However, using a sample size as large as a STATE's Veterans should not produce this abnormality without some type of reason. Of course, the reason here is that Veterans send their disability claims to their respective Regional Offices. And these RO's are staffed by people who make judgement calls about Veterans disabilities. At each RO there is a "culture"...basically an opinion about Veterans. Everyone has an opinion about Veterans, so that cant be helped. I have personally heard, at a VA hospital, a guy who was the lab manager say, "That agent orange stuff is a bunch of crap, and Veterans trying to stiff the government out of money"

I heard another guy, on a different web board say that unless a Veteran has a missing leg, or some disability you can actually see, he deserves zero compensation. He pretty much said that all PTSD Vets are frauds. He angered a lot of Veterans, big time, and was banned, but still there is no doubt there are people who are rating specialists that really dont beleive there is such a thing as PTSD and pretty much deny all of those claims. There is also lots of politics going on at the VA. It is a political organazation, with its head (the Secretary) appointed by the president and confirmed by congress. It isnt a thing where the best rater works his way up to the position of Secretary of the VA, like it would be if the VA were a private company.

I am going to add here that I am definately opposed to that guy who says all PTSD Vets are frauds, or anyone with Agent Orange is trying to ripoff the government. Agent Orange and PTSD are very, very real. We saw that a couple months ago with that Psychiatrist, who didnt want to go back to Iraq/Afghanastan, who went and shot something like 12 people. I think that guys PTSD was very very real..if you dont think so, ask the famalies of his victims.

Edited January 2, 2010 by broncovet