In recent testimony before a joint hearing of the House and Senate Veterans Affairs Committees, the national commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars said the claims processing system at the Department of Veterans Affairs 'is broken.'

VFW Commander-in-Chief Gary Kurpius said it was broken because VA has an unmanageable backlog of more than 800,000 claims, that it takes a half year for a claims rating, and that more than 100,000 veteran claims are decided wrongly every year, or one in every eight.

“It is unacceptable, because each delay and every wrong decision have real human costs,” he said. “Fixing the Veterans Benefits Administration is important because the VBA is the gateway to all of VA. No disabled veteran should have to wait for benefits many of them need to care for themselves and their families.”

Kurpius also challenged Congress to pass an on-time VA budget. He said the discretionary appropriations process has not provided an on-time budget in eight years, which creates managerial problems that negatively impact new VA construction and infrastructure improvements, and the hiring of new personnel.

“We must look to alternative means of funding the VA, such as an assured funding system would make VA health care more dependable and stable, eliminate the year-to-year uncertainty, and would allow proper planning for VA managers to adequately care for our nation’s veterans,” he said.

“The VA is staffed with 235,000 dedicated employees, but they can’t do it without proper resources.”

Speaking before a standing room-only crowd of several hundred VFW delegates in town for the VFW Legislative and Community Service Conference, Kurpius also made sure that Congress understood the VFW’s concern for traumatic brain injuries and the mental health issues arising from the current war in Iraq.

“Blast injuries are the signature wound of this war. We cannot afford to let our feet drag with these unique injuries as we did with other signature illnesses from previous conflicts,” he said, referring to the affects of Agent Orange on his Vietnam generation and the Gulf War Syndrome of 1991.

The national commander reiterated the VFW’s opposition to the use of lawyers in the early claims process, and he asked Congress to once again reject the administration’s request to create enrollment fees and raise prescription co-payments for Category 7 and/or 8 veterans.

He also called on Congress to exercise their oversight powers to ensure that the problems at nearby Walter Reed Army Medical Center and elsewhere are corrected; to guarantee that VA information security programs do not place any veterans at risk of identity theft; to force the VA and Defense Department to turn the seamless transition concept into reality; and to change the current G.I. Bill into a mirror image of its World War II predecessor.

“It is an opportunity to invest in America that we must make,” he said, while urging the senators and representatives to create corporate partnerships in their hometowns so that servicemen and women transitioning back into civilian status can be welcomed home with real jobs with futures.