Improving Compensation Benefits For Veterans In Certain Cases Of Impairment Of Vision Involving Both Eyes

Floor Speech

IMPROVING COMPENSATION BENEFITS FOR VETERANS IN CERTAIN CASES OF IMPAIRMENT OF VISION INVOLVING BOTH EYES -- (House of Representatives - March 21, 2007)

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Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 797, the Dr. James Allen Veteran Vision Equity Act.

This bill fixes an inequity that has resulted in the denial of appropriate disability compensation to blinded veterans.

I wanted to share, first of all, the story of Dr. James Allen after whom this legislation is named. Dr. Allen is a distinguished, caring professor of ophthalmology at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine. He has worked at our veterans hospital for nearly 33 years and treated countless eye patients, including many veterans who are blind.

One such patient is a Mr. Donald May. Don is a World War II veteran who lost his right eye in a hand grenade explosion. A few years ago, Mr. May began losing vision and ultimately became legally blind in his other nonservice-connected eye. He applied to the Department of Veterans Affairs for help, but was denied further benefits. He was told that the current law in regard to paired organs did not apply to him even though he was legally blind in both his service-connected right eye and his nonservice-connected left eye.

After Dr. Allen brought the plight of Don May and many other patients to my attention, I began to research why these veterans were being denied the benefits that I felt they deserved, benefits that I believed Congress intended to grant them. Through my work with the Blinded Veterans Association, we discovered that while the current paired organ statute covers blindness in theory, in practice few if any veterans have been able to qualify for the additional disability compensation under its terms.

Congress has rightly recognized that some human organs and limbs are designed to work in pairs: our legs, our kidneys, our lungs, our ears, and of course our eyes. In the instance of eyes, blindness in one eye profoundly affects depth perception, even if sight is fully retained in the other eye.

The paired organ statute was written to assist those veterans who experience a service-connected loss of a paired organ or limb. This statute recognizes the interdependency of paired organs, and endeavors to treat the combined disability created by a nonservice-connected loss and injury or degeneration of the remaining paired organ or limb as though it, too, were the result of a service-connected disability. In general, the paired organ statute accomplishes this task except its treatment of loss of sight.

With regard to eyesight, the statute does not adequately define the term blindness, nor is any provision made for the impairment of vision in the nonservice-connected eye short of blindness.

Rather than using a visual acuity of 20/200 or a loss of field of vision 20 degrees, as is the definition of legal blindness that has been adopted by all 50 States and the Social Security Administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs uses a much more restrictive 5/200 rating for legal blindness. I was asked to describe exactly what that 5/200 means. Really, in layman's terms, it is the equivalent to having light perception only, but the specific definition is somebody with the ability to see at 5 feet what most of the rest of us could see at 200 feet.

As a result, few if any blinded veterans are able to qualify for additional compensation under the paired organ statute.

H.R. 797, the Dr. James Allen Veteran Vision Equity Act, fixes this problem. It defines blindness as impairment of vision where the impairment is to a visual acuity of 20/200 or less or a peripheral field loss of 20 degrees or less. This change in the law would only affect a small percentage, estimated to be roughly 5 percent, of the 13,000-plus veterans who are service-connected for loss of vision in one eye.

Yet, such a change would send a powerful signal to our Nation's blinded veterans that their hardships are not forgotten. Indeed, our Nation's blinded veterans face significant challenges in the labor market.

The National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation Research found that for individuals with visual impairments, to the extent they are unable to read letters, that the employment rate is only 30.8 percent compared to 82.1 percent for people without disabilities. Given this employment trend, and the unique socioeconomic experiences of our veterans, it is even more urgent that Congress correct this one last inequity in the current paired organ statute and address the life-altering impact of blindness on our veterans.

I want to mention also that in compliance with our pay-as-you-go rules, section 2 of H.R. 797 fully offsets the cost of additional vision benefits. It directs the Veterans Secretary and the Secretary of Health and Human Services to match and compare VA needs-based pension benefits data, parents' dependency and indemnity compensation data, health care services data and unemployment data with the National Directory of New Hires maintained by HHS for the purpose of determining eligibility for such benefits and services. According to the GAO, the General Accountability Office, such data-matching project would help reduce fraud and waste within the VA system as it determines eligibility and benefits to those veterans thought to be unemployable, but who are indeed working.

I would like to thank Chairman Filner, Subcommittee Chairman John Hall, as well as Congressman Boozman, Congressman Snyder and Congressman Miller for their unwavering support of this bill. I also want to thank the staff of the Veterans' Affairs Committee for helping advance this legislation.

H.R. 797 is a modest but very important step in restoring fair treatment to those blinded due to their service to our country and to further our commitment to them. Their sacrifices and service to this Nation should be matched by our desire to improve the quality of life for them and for their families.

I want to note that the Blinded Veterans Association has identified over 200 soldiers returning from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom who are blinded in one eye due to service-related injuries and could perhaps in the future benefit from this legislation.

I strongly urge my colleagues to support H.R. 797.

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