Noteboom The Law Firm

Obama's VA Budget Proposal Intends to Eliminate Disability Claims Backlog

In his fiscal year 2010 budget unveiled Thursday, Obama proposed a 15 percent increase to VA's budget, from $97.7 billion this fiscal year to $112.8 billion for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, 2009 on top of the $1.4 billion already set aside for VA projects in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

His proposal for the agency would fund a radical overhaul of VA's technological infrastructure and aims to eliminate an average six-month wait to have disability claims processed. As of September 2008, 330,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have filed disability claims to the VA, according to the agency. Yet, 54,000 are still waiting for the VA to confirm their claims were received. The average wait for a disability claim is more than six months.

Under the Bush administration, the VA suffered through massive budget shortfalls--$1 billion in 2005 alone-- due, in part, to Bush's political cronies who downplayed the agency's financial needs and failed to take into account the costs associated with treating veterans injured in Afghanistan and Iraq. Previous Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports found that the VA used controversial accounting during the height of the Iraq war to justify cuts to veteran's healthcare enacted by the Bush administration.

Last month, the GAO released a little known report that said VA officials, in the last days of the Bush administration, continued to lowball their budget estimates to Congress to keep spending down.

The GAO concluded that in the final days of the Bush administration VA underestimated its 2009 budget for nursing home care by about $112 million and misleads Congress about treating veterans in hospices by $144 million.

To read more about Obama's proposal and how the funds will be used, click here.