A National Shame: The Va Plays A Shell Game With Veterans Benefits

[allan]

A National Shame: The VA plays a shell game with Veterans Benefits

http://www.pebforum.com/content/national-shame-va-plays-shell-game-veterans-benefits-54/

[broncovet]

Yet another great article, Allan

The Secretary essentially wants to eliminate the judge having to give a "Reasons and Bases" for a decision. This is crazy. Why shouldnt the judge have to give a reason? The Veteran needs to know the reason so that he may appeal. I mean c'mon...can the judge deny the claim because he does not like the claimants purple shirt? The judge HAS to have reasons anyway, so do Veterans not deserve to know why their claim was denied? Of course they do.

This proposal by Shinseki is definately NOT Veteran-friendly! He is looking out for himself and VA employees, not Vets...thus the "slight of hand" game.

[john999]

The key word would be "plausable". The BVA would just have to produce a plausable reason for its decision. Many, many things are plausable. I have a decision back from the 70's that has no "reasons and basis". They just cherry picked the evidence. I think the VA wants to cut its budget, but it is politically unacceptable to just cut benefits, so they go behind the public's back to make it more difficult to win a claim. If these sorts of rules are passed then the lawyers will again back away from representing vets. Retired generals like Shinseki make plenty of money. Disabled PFC's or SGT's make very small money on disability. However, since their are thousands of enlisted from current endless wars applying for benefits this is making our dear VA and congress uncomfortable.

[Notorious Kelly]

Ample $$$ for cannons, a little short for cannon fodder.