Obama to Ease Rule on U.S. Veterans Seeking Stress-Disorder Aid
July 10, 2010, 6:15 AM EDT - By Roger Runningen
President Barack Obama said the government next week will make it easier for thousands of U.S. veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder to obtain benefits.
“This is a long-overdue step that will help veterans, not just of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but generations of their brave predecessors who proudly served and sacrificed in all our wars,” Obama said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
The disorder, known as PTSD, is brought on by wartime experiences of death, threats of death or injury. The hidden and emotional scars may leave victims battling intense fear, helplessness and feelings of horror years after their combat roles have ended.
“For many years, veterans with PTSD have been stymied in receiving benefits by requirements they produce evidence proving a specific event caused the PTSD,” Obama said. “Streamlining this process will help not just the veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but generations of veterans who have served and sacrificed for the country.”
New rules will end corroboration requirements that involve lengthy searches of veterans’ records, a process that may take months or years, according to Veterans Affairs Department officials, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity because details of the new policy haven’t been released.
The changes will speed the process of diagnosing PTSD and granting benefits, the officials said. Eligibility for benefits also will be extended to soldiers in non-combat roles, such as drivers in military convoys afflicted by fear of roadside bombs, they said.
Taking Notes
“I don’t think our troops on the battlefield should have to take notes to keep for a claims application,” Obama said. “And I’ve met enough veterans to know that you don’t have to engage in a firefight to endure the trauma of war.”
Qualified veterans are entitled to disability compensation of as much as $2,700 a month, the officials said.
The new policy is to be announced on July 12 by Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki.
Obama said many veterans have felt stigmatized or embarrassed about seeking help for a stress disorder.
“We’ve made it clear up and down the chain of command that folks should seek help if they need it,” Obama said. “That is our sacred trust with all who serve -- and it doesn’t end when their tour of duty does.”
Republican Address
In the weekly Republican address, Georgia Representative Phil Gingrey promoted a Republican Party project called “America Speaking Out,” which provides an Internet forum for discussions about policy issues and lets participants vote on their preferences.
“Americans are fed up with how things are going in the country right now,” Gingrey said, citing job losses, the $862 billion stimulus program, rising government debt and the “2,000-page, trillion-dollar” health-care overhaul enacted in March.
Gingrey said the Republican Party is offering plans to reduce federal spending and “provide the fiscal discipline economists say is needed to create private-sector jobs and boost our economy.”
The item seems to merge two separate items, the perpetual GOP will to cut government spending and the specific Obama decisionmaking on cutting the red tape and removing the phony and troublesome roadblocks to PTSD relief that troubled veterans have to face instead of currently being treated more fairly - but there is a relationship between the two, for that red tape and roadblock situation against veteran interests was created, deliberately, by those wanting benefits - welfare payments - to be harder to attain and not easier.
It is the same thing as the discontinuance of the AFDC program, where parents were given aid to assure a greater likelihood of healthier better adjusted adults in following adult generations; but where tax cutting pressure and "welfare queen" imagery interfered.
Surely with easier qualifying rules to gain PTSD veterans benefits some will game the system - via a mentality of, "If benefits are easier I just might file a claim," which is an easy thing to understand - the motive to use the system for a benefit whether deserved or not always exists; so there will be those seeking an advantage they actually are not entitled to. Any time qualification standards are lowered you will face the worry of greater cheating.
Well, so what?
The alternative is to be inhumane and hateful toward those who have served and have been exposed to stressful long, now often repeated tours of duty, and have had it take a mental toll.
Why should such people have to jump through a bunch of unnecessary hoops in order to be accorded respect and to in general create a better adjusted public (the aim, after all, of AFDC also).
The answer is both programs have merit and neither should be sacrificed because some people hate to pay taxes. And that is the reason there is the chintziness. If insufficient money is available, then it is made harder to gain even when fully merited.
One can argue relative value of one program against the other, but that ignores the fact that each is a benefit that society, in its best wisdom, should make available to yield that better adjusted and more productive adult population now and into the future. And to be decent to people in stressful situations, veterans and children who are ill-equipped to fend for themselves without trauma disorders in some neighborhoods and situations. To do less is to risk greater random outbreaks of violence, individuals unnecessarily suffering in silent pain, and other ills a prosperous society should not infilct on some of its more vulnerable members.
So, who is going to email or post a comment that PTSD benefits should continue to be artificially made harder to attain?
A society has to be decent to be a society, and not just a collection of greedy individuals watched over by powerful police forces so they do not do mayhem to each other. And to suggest that private charity should for some reason be relied upon by veterans suffering from PTSD, and not the government, is as great a fallacy and sham as saying that public responsibilities of government can be dodged by such things as past administrations touting private charity as if such a handoff would be morally acceptable or that the false motives of cutting taxes for the rich by cutting services to the poor while saying "Salvation Army" might be missed by citizens as being fundamentally flawed government.
And have no doubt the same mean-spirited opposition to healthcare reform is akin to the past false imposition of impediments to due aid that Obama is removing for our veteran population - the part of it where families are afflicted with PSTD and related stress and ongoing trauma. They are cut from the same flawed bolt of cloth. Some right-wing politicians would deny or obscure that this is so, but think about it. Healthcare to all, healthcare to veterans - government meeting its duty to its citizens to be a civilized regime that earns and deserves citizen respect -- or not. Some would say the "or not" option is better since it better serves the pocketbooks of the rich and unwilling.
People feeling charitable, on their own, is a fine thing - quite praiseworthy - but a government using such positive genuine feelings among private individuals as an excuse to dodge and hide from its basic social duty is a rogue government, and not at all a decent one.