Seems we have not learned any lessons from our past...
Nearly 50% of our vets are on disability... Payments range from $127 a month for a 10 percent disability to $2,769 for full... payments are pretty much for life.
I'm not saying these vets don't deserve disability, in fact i'd say the benefits are rather low and the delays in processing are truly sad.
Approx 2 Million vets are on some form of disability as a direct result of the current and past wars. We can wind down the wars but the spending is not going to change much and our unfunded liabilities are approaching a Trillion $!
"The average wait to get a new one processed grows longer each month and is now about eight months â time that a frustrated, injured veteran might spend with no income.
More than 560,000 veterans from all wars currently have claims that are backlogged â older than 125 days."
"We have 4.4 million case files sitting around 56 regional offices that we have to work with; that slows us down significantly,"
For taxpayers, the ordeal is just beginning. With any war, the cost of caring for veterans rises for several decades and peaks 30 to 40 years later, when diseases of aging are more common, said Harvard economist Linda Bilmes. She estimates the health care and disability costs of the recent wars at $600 billion to $900 billion.
"This is a huge number and there's no money set aside," she said. "Unless we take steps now into some kind of fund that will grow over time, it's very plausible many people will feel we can't afford these benefits we overpromised."
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-almost-half-vets-seek-disability-160656481.html
Nearly 50% of our vets are on disability... Payments range from $127 a month for a 10 percent disability to $2,769 for full... payments are pretty much for life.
I'm not saying these vets don't deserve disability, in fact i'd say the benefits are rather low and the delays in processing are truly sad.
Approx 2 Million vets are on some form of disability as a direct result of the current and past wars. We can wind down the wars but the spending is not going to change much and our unfunded liabilities are approaching a Trillion $!
"The average wait to get a new one processed grows longer each month and is now about eight months â time that a frustrated, injured veteran might spend with no income.
More than 560,000 veterans from all wars currently have claims that are backlogged â older than 125 days."
"We have 4.4 million case files sitting around 56 regional offices that we have to work with; that slows us down significantly,"
For taxpayers, the ordeal is just beginning. With any war, the cost of caring for veterans rises for several decades and peaks 30 to 40 years later, when diseases of aging are more common, said Harvard economist Linda Bilmes. She estimates the health care and disability costs of the recent wars at $600 billion to $900 billion.
"This is a huge number and there's no money set aside," she said. "Unless we take steps now into some kind of fund that will grow over time, it's very plausible many people will feel we can't afford these benefits we overpromised."
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-almost-half-vets-seek-disability-160656481.html