SOURCE: www.veterans.house.gov
Opening Statement of Hon. John J. Hall, Chairman, Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs:
Hearings, June 15, 2010 . . . I welcome everyone here for today’s hearing entitled, “The State of the Veterans Benefits Administration.” This hearing represents the 7th hearing this year and the 15th for the 111 Congress that this Committee has conducted relating to problems plaguing the disability claims processing system. While oversight has been vigorous with significant activity on this front from stakeholders across the Board, the system is still in need of comprehensive repair.
Today, there are over 546,000 compensation and pension claims awaiting final processing and a complete inventory or backlog of over 1 million total claims and appeals within the VBA pending a decision. VBA workforce of over 13,000 employed in its compensation and pension operation, this figure represents a staffing increase of 32% since Democrats assumed control of Congress in 2007. However, as we have stated in the past the problems plaguing VBA are not just workforce issues, they are leadership methodology, culture, and technology issues. That is why we passed the Veterans Benefits Modernization Act, H.R. 5892 which was included almost in its totality in Public Law 110-389. As many of you in this room recall, with your help P.L. 110-389 established a guided roadmap for VA to get us to where we are today – encouraged by all of the reform efforts that VA is making but cautious to make sure we’re doing everything we can help VA make meaningful reformation of its claim processing system.
However, we want to avoid action for the sake of action and make certain that the 30-plus pilots that the VBA has going, translate into real change for our veterans and survivors languishing in the backlog. I think that most stakeholders believe that a comprehensive overhaul still is in order and I am encouraged that we seem to be on the right path to get there. I think we have the right leader for this monumental task in Secretary Shinseki who seems to have both the vision and the commitment to get us to a more Veteran-centered, 21st century system claims processing system.
We all know about the myriad of problems plaguing the VBA’s current claims processing system – lack of adequate training, a 30-40% error rate, a paper-based system, outdated IT architecture, and work credit and management systems that overemphasizes quality over quantity, with not enough emphasis on accountability, consistency or accuracy. As I have said many times and I know that many of you agree as does Secretary Shinseki, we want a system that gets it right the first time – one that renders decisions in which our veterans and stakeholders have 100% confidence. Currently, that is not the case.
However, we are not here to blame anyone for where we are today because the claims backlog is a decades old problem that is coming to a head mostly because we are currently engaged in two wars for which there was little planning, at the same time that our older vets are aging and need more care. We want to focus on solutions. I expect to get a comprehensive update on where VA is today and what it plans to do to meet its 2015 claims transformation target with its new Veterans Benefits Management and Veterans Relationship Manager Systems. We also seek to learn if and how these two new systems interface with the Virtual Lifetime Electronic Records Initiative announced by Secretary Shinseki. Further, while recognizing the good work of VA’s acting Under-Secretary for Benefits, we look forward to learning about the status of VA’s effort to bring aboard a permanent Under-Secretary.
I think we all have the same goal, which is to insure that we have a world-class and modern claims processing system that helps our veterans, their families and survivors to secure the benefits they deserve and have earned without delay.
With that, I look forward to the insightful testimony of our witnesses and to comments and questions from my colleagues on the Subcommittee.