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Bills call for action on disability systems

The ranking Republicans on the House and Senate veterans’ affairs committees introduced legislation Thursday to overhaul the military and veterans’ disability systems, saying they fear that continued study of and debate over the changes could lead to a missed opportunity.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., said he understands that some people want to wait while details become clear — such as how much money should be paid if benefits were revised to account for factors such as income loss, reduced quality of life and the age at which a service-connected disability is incurred.

But such delay can be the death of new ideas, he said.

“This town has a rich history of eating good initiatives,” Burr said. “Now is the time to tackle this.”

There are slight differences between Burr’s bill, S 2674, and the bill introduced by Rep. Steve Buyer, R-Ind., HR 5509, but they have a similar overall goal: a fundamental overhaul of service-connected disability benefits.

Under the streamlined system, the Defense Department would be responsible for determining when a person is no longer fit to continue in military service, and the Department of Veterans Affairs would determine the level of disability based on a revised disability ratings schedule. The current schedule, Burr noted, is five decades old.

“The military disability retirement system is too complex and cumbersome, and it is unfair to place wounded warriors into such a morass when all they should have to be concerned with is their families and rehabilitative therapy,” Burr said. “It is time for DoD to get out of the ratings business and to leave that to one entity, VA.”

Burr is referring to the fact that the Defense Department and VA each have their own ratings processes, which often lead to different conclusions.

Duplicative programs “have to end,” Buyer said. “We need to move to one system that is going to be much more efficient and easy.”

While both Burr and Buyer talked about the need to act quickly, working out details is not easy. The two have slight differences in their plans and could not even agree on a name. Burr’s bill is America’s Wounded Warrior Act; Buyer’s is the Noble Warrior Act.

The bills are modeled after the recommendations made last year by the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Wounded Warriors, known as the Dole-Shalala Commission, and by the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission.

“It has been my longstanding view that we must modernize VA and establish a transition process that is seamless in its efficiency,” Buyer said. “If we do not promptly address the problems identified by the commissions, we will merely be passing them off to future generations.”