Source:
Associated Press/Army TimesPosted : Monday Jul 23, 2007 7:38:34 EDT
Frustrated by delays in health care, a coalition of injured Iraq war veterans is accusing VA Secretary Jim Nicholson of breaking the law by denying them disability pay and mental health treatment.
The class-action lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs, filed Monday in federal court in San Francisco, seeks broad change in the agency as it struggles to meet growing demands from veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan.
Suing on behalf of hundreds of thousands of veterans, it charges that VA has failed warriors on several fronts — from providing prompt disability benefits, to adding staff to reduce wait times for medical care to boosting services for post-traumatic stress disorder.
The lawsuit also accuses VA of deliberately cheating some veterans by allegedly working with the Pentagon to misclassify PTSD claims as pre-existing personality disorders to avoid paying out benefits.
...snip
Read more:
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2007/07/ap_veteranslawsuit_070723/
the article below has hot links at the original page (I'm too lazy right now to copy paste them in)
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/print.cfm?page=print&ID=8034July 25 - VCS Testifies Before Congress about PTSD
Paul Sullivan, Executive Director, VCS
Veterans for Common Sense
Jul 15, 2007
The hearing was rescheduled to July 25.
VCS Testifies Before Congress about PTSD
Dear VCS Supporter:
Veterans for Common Sense's executive director, Paul Sullivan, was invited by the House Veterans Affairs Committee (HVAC) to testify about post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) claims.
The HVAC hearing is scheduled for July 17, 2007 (rescheduled to July 25), at 10 AM in the Cannon Office Building. Veterans, the public, and reporters are invited.VCS intends to testify about how VA instituted several anti-veteran policies in 2005 to fight the escalating number of our Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans seeking disability compensation for war-related mental health conditions, especially PTSD.
Our recent VCS report about Iraq and Afghanistan casualties climbing past 65,000 resulted in record traffic to our web site and several press interviews. Battlefield casualties, defined as "killed, wounded, injured, or ill," from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars escalated to 65,278, as of June 30, 2007.
Here are five news articles where VCS blew the whistle on how the administration of President George W. Bush is hiding the enormous human and financial costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars:
1. Associated Press, “DoD accused of fuzzy math in Iraq and Afghanistan war injury reports,” March 31, 2007.
2. New York Times, “Pentagon Lowers Casualty Totals, Excludes Injured and Ill from Total,” February 2, 2007.
3. New York Times, “VA Lowers Casualty Count - Says Higher Casualty Total Was Posted in Error,” January 30, 2007.
4. CNN, “This Week at War” with John Roberts, “Disabled Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans Flood into VA,” October 14, 2006.
5. New York Times, “Data Suggests Vast Costs Loom in Disability Claims,” October 11, 2006.
An internal VA report documents that 230,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans were already treated at VA hospitals since their return home. Another internal VA report confirms that 180,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans have already filed disability compensation claims against VA.
When combined, the facts paint an ominous future. Harvard University's Professor Linda Bilmes, using documents obtained by VCS, wrote a report showing the total cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, for VA healthcare and disiability paymentsy, may reach between $350 billion and $700 billion over the next 40 years.
Please take these facts to the press, to your U.S. Senator and U.S. Represenatative and ask them to make sure that S. 117 and S. 1606 become law so that the Bush Administration is forced to tell us the facts about the wars and actually begin to immediately assist all of our wounded, injured, and ill veterans.
Our mailing list keeps growing thanks to your efforts. Please spread the good word about VCS to your friends and ask them to subscribe to our growing mailing list.
If you want to support our work, please send in a tax-deductible contribution to VCS today.
Sincerley,
Paul Sullivan
Executive Director
Veterans for Common Sense
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