Disability pay can depend on where you live

Disability pay can depend on where you live
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Tuesday Oct 16, 2007 18:58:02 EDT

Despite efforts to improve consistency in disability ratings, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs has made only modest progress in reducing significant regional differences in pay for veterans with similar disabilities.

In 2004, there was a $5,043 difference between the average annual veterans’ disability compensation between New Mexico, which had the highest average payments, and Ohio, which had the lowest, said Jon Wooditch, the deputy VA inspector general, in Tuesday testimony before a House subcommittee. After efforts to provide consistent training, use more automation to reduce some subjective judgment, and taking other administrative steps to cut down on differences, the variance in payments actually increased, to $5,061 in 2005 and to $5,105 for 2006, Wooditch said in testimony before the House Veterans’ Affairs subcommittee on oversight and investigations. However, the difference in new claims declined from $6,054 in 2004 to $4,477 in 2006, which appears to show that new claims are being handled in a more uniform way.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, D-Ariz., the subcommittee chairman, said he knows the VA has made “efforts to correct these issues but more has to be done.”

“We are sending the wrong message to our nation’s veterans,” Mitchell said. “We are saying that even though you served courageously for your country, you better live in the right state and hire a professional when filing for disability benefits.”

Wooditch said some differences are the result of demographic factors — such as the branch of the service, period or length of service, or number of dependents — over which the VA has no control. But most of the inconsistency appears to result from subjective differences in how raters look at cases.

Some of the biggest differences come for ratings dealing with mental disorders, such as post-traumatic stress disorders, and for veterans whose disability is rated at less than 100 percent but are considered unemployable, said David Hunter of the Institute for Defense Analyses, which looked at disability payments. A study by Hunter’s group found the average annual disability pay in 2005 was $8,890, but the average payment was more than $12,000 in New Mexico and less than $8,000 in Ohio.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/10/military_states_disabilitypayments_071016w/

This is disgusting, these men and women have put their lives on the line and this is the thanks they get.

Terrible.

K&R big time