Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2006
AGRICULTURE, RURAL DEVELOPMENT, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, AND RELATED AGENCIES APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2006
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Mr. DURBIN. Madam President, I rise to offer this amendment with Senators MURRAY, OBAMA and AKAKA, and I thank Senators FEINSTEIN and HUTCHISON, as managers of this bill, for working with us to place some reasonable limitations on the review of disability claims for post-traumatic stress disorder that is currently under way in the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Department of Veterans Affairs is conducting a review of 72,000 cases of veterans whom the VA has already rated at 100 percent disability due to post-traumatic stress disorder. The reason for this review is that the Inspector General of the VA recently found that the Department has, in the past, approved many PTSD disability claims without obtaining key documents from the veterans necessary to demonstrate that the PTSD is connected to their military service. In other words, the VA failed to adequately confirm the facts of the case.
In many cases, however, many years have now passed since the Department rated the veteran as disabled and began providing disability compensation. For many of these veterans suffering from the mental and emotional burdens of some very horrific experiences, that VA disability check may be their only source of income.
Now, the VA is re-opening these cases to determine if there was an error in their collection of documentation, and if so, where and how the error occurred.
Even if there was an error, however, that veteran is now dependent on that income. The veteran should not now--years later--be punished with a loss of their income due to the late discovery by the VA of its own error.
For this reason, the amendment I am offering today prohibits the use of any appropriated funds to revoke or reduce a veteran's disability compensation for post-traumatic stress disorder based on a finding that the Department of Veterans Affairs failed to collect justifying documentation, unless such failure was the direct result of fraud by the applicant.
It is the intent of this amendment that the Department may conduct this review if it provides a report to the Committee on Appropriations on the plan for staffing and funding requirements. The Department cannot, however, correct its error by taking money away from veterans.
America's veterans deserve the undying gratitude of the people of this Nation. America's veterans deserve speedy and accurate processing of their claims at the Department of Veterans Affairs. They do not deserve to be given compensation one day, only to have it taken away years later. Fortunately, the Senate is acting today to prevent that from happening.
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