Quality of Life Disability Payment Increase May Still Happen

September 2, 2010 - In 2007, the Veterans Disability Benefits Commission (VDBC) petitioned Congress for an immediate enactment of a "quality of life" increase. The VDBC requested this increase be added to disability compensation payments being paid out by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Further, the VDBC wanted the increase to: 

• Be given to all veterans suffering from a service-related condition; and
• Be as much as 25% for the most severely disabled veterans.

According to the VDBC, VA disability compensation payments do not include any additional money to compensate veterans for their diminished quality of life. Despite the VA paying a Special Monthly Compensation (SMC) to veterans without limbs or without the use of their limbs, the VDBC argued there must be a "systematic methodology" for determining how much compensation should be paid for a diminished quality of life.

This quality of life payment was never granted. The reality of the situation was the VDBC's demands were only attractive to the veteran community. The SMC approach toward determining disability compensation is very clear cut. You either meet the parameters or you do not meet the parameters. Instead of an across the board raise in compensation, it has been suggested targeting only the most severely disabled veterans for the raise is more probable. This could be accomplished by either:  

• Enlarging SMC parameters; or
• Developing a new model to determine how to compensate disabled veterans for non-economic losses.

"Quality of life" is not an existing phrase in anything relating to determining disability pay. Any additional payments made on these grounds would have to be Congressionally approved. The VDBC plans on changing their language referring to additional disability pay to speak only to "non-economic loss" as opposed to quality of life. Now it is up to the VDBC to propose changes to the SMC that will properly address the non-economic loss payments owed to severely disabled veterans.