Nomination Jim Nicholson to be Secretary of Veterans Affairs

NOMINATION JIM NICHOLSON TO BE SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS -- (Senate - January 26, 2005)

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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, today we consider President Bush's nominee to serve as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. At a time when America's men and women in uniform are not only serving but actively fighting in combat, this is a particularly significant nomination for us to consider. This nominee will be responsible for managing the benefits for our longtime veterans as well as those who recently have served and sacrificed for us all.

Those who have served in uniform deserve our Nation's deepest gratitude. Beyond gratitude, we, as a nation, have committed to providing our veterans with certain benefits and services which they deeply deserve in honor of their sacrifice for our common good. These benefits can never fully repay America's debt to her veterans but they are an important expression of our thanks and commitment to their well-being.

Sadly, the delivery of these benefits and services has been less than optimal. Every day, deserving veterans wait too long and wade through needless redtape before receiving the help to which they are legally and morally entitled.

I am also particularly concerned about the vast disparities in the VA's compensation payments to disabled veterans and the way the current system shortchanges disabled veterans in my State of Illinois.

Illinois now ranks 50th in the Nation in average veteran's disability compensation. While the veterans in some States receive a statewide average disability payment of $10,000 to $11,000 per year, veterans in other States--including Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, New Jersey and others--receive statewide average disability payments of less than $7,000 a year. This wide inconsistency should not exist. America's veterans deserve better. The ability of veterans to receive fair and just compensation for service-related disabilities should not depend on where they happen to live.

Unfortunately, this disparity has been left uncorrected for several years. In 2001, the Department of Veterans Affairs' Claims Processing Task Force questioned the consistency of decisions because of factors such as differing interpretations of VA guidance. Then, in 2002 the Government Accountability Office reported that the VA was not systematically assessing decisionmaking consistency for any specific medical impairments, despite concerns about possible inconsistencies in disability claims decisions made by the VA's 57 regional offices. In that same 2002 report, GAO expressly recommended that the VA assess decisionmaking consistency for medical conditions requiring difficult judgment. The GAO even suggested a way to do this. The VA could develop hypothetical claims for a specific medical impairment, distribute these claims to multiple adjudicators, and then analyze the variations in the resulting decisions on these claims. These findings and recommendations went unheeded at the Department of Veterans Affairs. This past November, a new GAO report on the consistency of decisions at the VA found that since the issuance of the 2002 report, the VA still had not systematically assessed the consistency of regional office decisions.

Several Senators have joined me in raising this issue with the current Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Secretary Principi. As a result of our expressions of concern, the Inspector General of the Department of Veterans Affairs is currently conducting a review of the Veterans Benefits Administration's system for rating disability claims to determine the reasons for these nationwide differences.

Because the national disparity in veterans disability compensation hits Illinois especially hard, Senator Obama and I met with Ambassador Nicholson soon after his nomination to serve as the next Secretary of Veterans Affairs. In our meeting, he indicated to us that he was already aware of the concerns raised about inconsistent decisions at the VA and the ongoing Inspector General review into the matter.

America's veterans deserve our deepest gratitude. They also deserve a benefits system that is managed in a competent manner so that it produces fair, even and consistent decisions. I will continue to press for action to address the flaws of the current system that leave Illinois veterans shortchanged. I look forward to working with Mr. Nicholson to ensure that our veterans receive all the benefits to which they are entitled.

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