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Not the Cause
Thousands of vets are collecting cash for common ailments like arthritis and hypertension, as well as minor scars, hysterectomies and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) such as herpes and gonorrhea -- conditions that have nothing to do with combat or the places the vets were stationed. In some cases, they ask for benefits years, even decades, after their service. According to a 2003 Congressional Budget Office report, almost 300,000 veterans get disability payments for conditions that are "generally neither caused nor aggravated by military service." The annual price tag for these cases is $970 million.When the Government Accountability Office asked independent doctors to examine individual veterans, it became clear that the bar for getting benefits can be set ridiculously low. For instance, one Air Force veteran qualified for lucrative benefits when he developed lung disease seven years after leaving the service. No one seemed to care that he had smoked up to 30 cigarettes a day before and during his tour.
Another vet was treated for mild arthritis during his one year in the Army. More than 20 years after his discharge, he was severely injured in a car accident, which obviously exacerbated his joint pain. The military subsequently granted him its highest disability rating -- currently worth almost $30,000 per year.
Then there was the man who joined the Army with a preexisting heart murmur. Forty years later, he won thousands of dollars in additional benefits when his heart conditioned worsened. He blamed his three years of service, but doctors reviewing his case said his years of smoking and drinking were the real problem.
Advocates for the 2.7 million veterans who are currently drawing disability benefits insist this is no place to go looking for budget savings. "Nobody wants the system to be paying people that don't have a right to [the benefits]," says David Autry of the Disabled American Veterans organization. But he adds that this rarely happens. Hemorrhoids, for instance, "can be very painful," he says, and may be caused by long hours sitting in a tank. Nor should a huge system be judged by a few examples.
It's not a small amount of money we're talking about, though, and hemorrhoid sufferers aren't even the most preposterous beneficiaries. The prize should probably go to vets who get covered for their STDs. One Arizona veteran, for example, contracted genital herpes in 1994 and complained that it made sexual activity "difficult on a repetitive basis." After four years of appeals, the government finally awarded him $300 per month in disability benefits for the rest of his life. And a Wisconsin vet was recently awarded $100 per month for the lingering effects of the gonorrhea he contracted from a prostitute during his basic training, way back in 1972, according to Scripps Howard. "It's pretty hard to explain why that's service related," says Tom Schatz, president of Citizens Against Government Waste.
The VA is trying to respond to its growing backlog by hiring hundreds of new claims agents. That's just attacking the result, not the cause. For its part, Congress has created a blue-ribbon commission to study veterans' benefits from top to bottom. Politicians rarely take benefits away from people who already get them, of course. But maybe public outrage can get Washington to do the right thing. After all, it's a no-brainer: Disability checks should go to the disabled -- people like James Webb, whose lives have been shattered by war. For folks suffering from hemorrhoids, there's always Preparation H.
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