VFW Washington Weekly - February 29, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008 at 06:46 PM
by alabama
In This Issue:1. House VA Committee Hearings
2. Five Years of VA Care for New Combat Vets
1. House VA Committee Hearings
The Subcommittee on Disability & Memorial Affairs held a hearing on Revising VA's Disability Rating Schedule. VFW testified in support of the Institute of Medicine and the Veterans Disability Benefits Commissions recommendations that VA should create a permanent disability advisory committee staffed with experts who would meet regularly to offer direction and insight in reviewing and updating the rating schedule. We believe the rating schedule structure is sound but changes to meet current science and medical technological advances must be made. We also offered our opinion on quality of life payments, Individual Unemployablity, Traumatic Brain Injury evaluation criteria and improving the presumptive disability decision making process. The hearing had 5 expert panels ranging from VA, VSO's and medical and psychiatric experts- all of which have done extensive research and studies on disability ratings.
The Subcommittee on Health held a hearing on VA Construction Authorization. VFW testified on behalf of the Independent Budget on draft legislation aimed at funding VA's major and minor construction projects. We believe that VA construction and infrastructure maintenance projects must be planned an implemented under the Capitol Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services Process (CARES). VA developed CARES to estimate current and future demand for health care and although it is a complex model it adjusts for demographic shifts, changing needs for health care as the veteran population ages, projections for health care innovation and many other factors. We also voiced our support for the construction, renovation and maintenance projects covered in the draft-bill and the additional funding added to complete the projects.
On Thursday, the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee discussed the Subprime Mortgage Crisis and America's Veterans -The hearing is the first of its kind to assess how the current housing market affects veterans and if VA's home loan program has a role to play in the closures affecting communities. RealtyTrac, an online retailer released its January 2008 foreclosure report which estimates that the foreclosure rate has increased 57 percent when compared to the same month in 2007. According to some panelists data specific to veterans does not exist, or is limited in scope, which makes it harder to know how the current mortgage crisis is affecting veterans.
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