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VDBC vs. PCARWW

VDBC vs. PCARWW

In the backdrop of all that is going on in the VA there is still the move to overhaul benefits.  There has been the existing committee that started in 2005 vs. the Dole/Shalala Commission.  The administration has moved on many parts of the Dole recommendations.  It is unclear what will happen with the rest of both plans given the short time left until the elections... 

VDBC vs. PCARWW:   Congress created the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission (VDBC) in 2004 to review, among other things, whether disability compensation benefits were "appropriate".  The VDBC began meeting in MAY 05.  Over the next 30 months it held 55 days of hearings, listened to hundreds of witnesses, interview over 20,000 veterans and survivors, surveyed thousands more VA and veteran service organization employees, commissioned two Institute of Medicine studies and the Center for Naval Analysis to conduct original research in a number of pertinent areas.  In OCT 07 it made 113 recommendations, the bulk of which pertain to compensation benefits. The VDBC recommendations continue one law for all veterans.  It recommended keeping the most basic concepts while encouraging the methodical and deliberate review and modification to correct known problems.

In early 2007 the President created the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors (PCARWW), headed by retired Senator Bob Dole and former Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala (Dole/Shalala), to make recommendations for the correction of problems reported at the Army medical facility at Walter Reed.  In JUL 07 after approximately four months of study, the Dole/Shalala Commission made a number of recommendations addressing treatment of combat injured service members.  In addition, it recommended the total elimination of the current compensation program administered by VA and substitutes an undefined, untried and unsubstantiated program in its place. It would institute a new program for new veterans, dividing the veteran community into different groups, old and young, combat and non-combat.  This reinstitutes a concept repudiated by Congress over 30 years ago which would pay veterans with identical disabilities different compensation.

    The most striking differences between the two set of recommendations are these:

1.)           Disabilities: VDBC - No change to current policy that disabilities arising coincident with service, whether from combat or otherwise, should be compensated the same. PCARWW - Would create different benefits

for disabilities acquired during combat.  Non-combat disabilities would be paid less.

2.)           Length of Payment: VDBC - Once service connection is granted, payments would continue unless the disability improved. PCARWW - Compensation would be delayed while new veterans received a new transition benefit.  Compensation

would continue only until "retirement age" to be replaced by Social Security.

3.)           Tax Liability: VDBC - Tax free (current policy). PCARWW - Compensation subject to FICA tax.

4.)           Review Examinations: VDBC - No change from current policy which

allows VA to decide when to order a review examination.  Currently, only ordered when improvement is possible. PCARWW - Require review examinations of all disabilities every 3 years.

5.)           Quality of Life Payments: VDBC - After research, award additional payments if disability causes impairment of quality of life.  PCARWW - Same, plus: quality of life payments are only available to combat-related injuries.

6.)           Schedule of Rating Disabilities: VDBC - Create a permanent Advisory Committee independent of VA to oversee the revision of VA rating schedule.  This was based on an Institute of Medicine Study. PCARWW - Replace rating schedule with new, undefined, schedule created in 6 months by VA.

7.)           Individual Unemployability (IU): VDBC - Update the rating schedule to ensure that disabilities that are severe enough to preclude employment are evaluated 100%.  This would lessen the number of grants of IU but not eliminate it. PCARWW - Eliminate IU.

End of Document

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