We As Veterans Need To Act Today To Stop This Action

OPPOSE S2674/HR5509 Which Discriminate Against Disabled Veterans Oppose S2674/HR5509 Which Discriminate Against Disabled Veterans Take Action!



Please send the following message to your elected officials and candidates for office --

As a disabled veteran and your voting constituent, I am most concerned with the provisions of Senator Burr's America's Wounded Warrior Act (S 2674) and Representative Buyer's Nobel Warrior Act (HR 5509), which would drastically change the disability compensation system for America's veterans. These bills are loosely based on the recommendations of the President's Commission on Care for America's Wounded Warriors (Dole/Shalala Commission), but the specifics of these bills would do great harm to these veterans in the following ways:

* Offset VA Disability Compensation by Social Security when the veteran ages 65.

* Apply to all currently discharging veterans AND any veteran under VA's current compensation system who files a subsequent claim for additional benefits.

* Once under the new system the veteran cannot return to the current system.

* Protection for ratings in effect for 10 or more years would no longer apply.

* Would require the VA Secretary to examine or consider:
(a) "the extent to which disability compensation may be used as an incentive to undergo treatment"
(b) "the appropriate injuries to be covered under the new disability rating system"
(c) "age" as a determining factor when considering average loss of earnings capacity

* Amends the law to provide the Secretary with authority to adopt and apply a rating schedule for "specific injuries." This provision would expressly limit VA authority over the Rating Schedule and places the authority in the hands of Congress. If the Congress can not correct the Sustained Growth Rate formula of Medicare Law how can we expect the Congress to do any better with the much more complex Disability Rating Schedule?

* Provides for a quality of life payment, but only for those enrolled in the "new" compensation system.

* Allows or suggests: That VA "may take into account the effect on potential future earnings caused by the age of the veteran at the time a disability rating is assigned." This provision would allow VA to compensate an older veteran at a lower percentage of disability than a younger veteran for the exact same disease or injury. Is this not age discrimination?

* Provides that
(a) "as frequently as [the VA] considers it appropriate, [the VA] must reevaluate and ... adjust the disability rating for any veteran receiving compensation;"
(b) the VA "must ... take into account any adjustments in the rating schedule that occurred since the last assignment of a rating;"
(c) The frequency of reevaluations would be determined by an examining physician. This places physicians back in the rating business, allows for frequent "adjustments" to a veteran's rating based on perceived improvement, and further allows reductions based on a change in the rating criteria even when no improvement in the disability is shown.

For these reasons, among others, I strongly urge you to oppose S2674/HR5509 and any other legislation which is detrimental to and/or discriminatory against this nation's veterans.


This action could drastically harm our benefits as we know them today!!!