Veteran_Affairs

VETERANS AFFAIRS VETERANS AFFIARS SOC 331 Beverly Rudnick ASHFORD UNIVERSITY 24 JANUARY 2011 VETERANS AFFAIRS I chose to write about Veterans Affairs because it’s close to my heart. I am a combat veteran of the United States Army. I was deployed to Iraq in 2003 and to Afghanistan in 2008. I think that after putting our lives on line for this country that we our needs should be taken care of by the government whether medical, educational, compensation and pension, or home loan insurance. The United States of Department of Veterans Affairs is a Cabinet department of the United States government responsible for administering programs of veterans, their families, and survivors. It is administered by the United States Secretary of Veteran Affairs. The Veterans Administration was created by an executive order by President Herbert Hoover in 1930. On October 25, 1988, President Reagan signed legislation creating a new federal Cabinet level Department of Veterans Affairs to replace the Veterans Administration effective March 15, 1989. The department of Veteran Affairs is the federal government second largest department. The Veteran Administration has a budget of more than $90 billion; Veteran Administration employs approximately 280,000 people at hundreds of VA medical centers, clinics, benefits offices, and national cemeteries throughout the country. It is one of the largest employers of healthcare personnel in the United States. The department which employs a lot of people is a reflection of the nation’s concern for the health and welfare of the millions of men and women who served in the armed services. ( Friedman, 2005). There about 25 million US veterans now .Even though the Veterans Administration is charged with providing services to all veterans from all the United States armed forces, fewer than one in five veterans participate in VA programs. I spoke to lot of veterans about why they are using the VA for the programs the rightfully earned they come up with all kinds of reasons. The reason that I mostly heard is that they are not aware of the programs that the Veterans Administration has to offer. It’s very hard very hard for to believe this because when a veteran leave the Armed Forces or return for a deployment they go through a briefing that let them know about the VA and its benefits. The reason why veterans don’t access the VA system and its services because they don’t want society to think that they have some kind of mental problems endured during combat. Veterans also complain that some of the people hired by the Veterans Administration don’t have any kind of military experience and cannot relate to veterans who came there with their problems. I think the VA should advertise on the media outlets to remind veterans that they are not forgotten and that the VA is there to help for them not to be ashamed to come and get the assistance they need. The VA should also hire veterans to work with other veterans who can relate to them. The Continental Congress of 1776 encouraged enlistments during the Revolutionary War by providing pensions for soldiers who were disabled. In 1811, the first domiciliary and medical facility for veterans was authorized by the federal government, but not opened until 1834.In the 19th century, the nation’s veterans assistance program was expanded to include benefits and pensions not only for veterans, but also their widows and dependents .Congress established a new system for veterans benefits when the United States entered World War 1 in 1917.By 1920s, the various benefits were administered three different federal agencies: the Veterans Bureau, the Bureau of pensions of the Interior Department, and the National Home of Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. The VA health care system has grown to 54 hospitals in 1930, to include 171 medical centers; more than 350 outpatient, community, and outreach clinics, 126 nursing home care units; and 35 domiciliary. VA health care facilities provide a spectrum of medical, surgical, and rehabilitative care. The responsibilities and benefits of the Veteran Administration grew enormously during the last sixty years. The World War 11 GI Bill, Signed onto law June 22, 1994, is said to have had more impact on the American way of life than any law since the Homestead Act more than a century ago. Further educational acts were passed for the benefit of veterans of the Korean Conflict. The Iraq and the Afghanistan Wars also put a lot of work on the Veterans Administration because of the number of veterans that are affected. ( Worden and Knight, 2007). The Veterans Administration has all kind of benefits for veterans and their families. The Veteran Administration benefits include Compensation and Pension, Education, Vocational Rehabilitation, Loan Guaranty, Medical Care, Research, Insurance and National Cemeteries. The Compensation and Pension service has the responsibility for claims for disability compensation and pensions, automobile allowances and special adaptive equipment, claims for specially adapted housing, special clothing allowances, and emergency officer’s retirement pay, and eligibility determinations based on military service for other VA benefits and services. The service also processes survivor’s claims for death compensation, death pensions, burial and plot allowance claims, claims for accrued benefits, claims for adjusted compensation in death cases, and claims for reimbursement of head stones. The Education service has responsibility for the Montgomery GI BILL for Active Duty and Selected Reserve, the Post Vietnam Era Veterans Educational Assistance Programs, the Survivors and Dependents Educational Assistance Programs, and schools approvals, compliance surveys, and work study. The Vocational Rehabilitation Service has responsibility for providing outreach, motivation, evaluation, counseling, training employment, and other rehabilitation services to disabled veterans. The service also provides evaluation, counseling, and miscellaneous services to veterans and service persons and other VA education programs, as well as sons, daughters, and spouses of totally and permanently disabled veterans. Loan Guaranty operations include appraising properties to establish their value, supervising the construction of new residential properties, establishing the eligibility of veterans for the program, assessing the ability of veteran to repay a loan and the associated credit risk, servicing and liquidating loans, and disposing of real estate acquired as the consequence of defaulted loans. The Loan Guaranty program was created by the Veterans Department after the end of World War 11. Life insurance operations are conducted for the benefit of service members and veterans and their beneficiaries. The Veterans Department Life insurance department activities include the complete maintenance of individual accounts, underwriting functions, and life and death insurance claims awards, as well as other insurance related transactions. The agency is also responsible for the administration of the Veterans Mortgage Life insurance program for those disabled veterans who receive a VA grant for specially adapted housing. The agency is also responsible for supervising the Servicemen’s Group Life Insurance and Veterans Group Life Insurance programs. The Veterans Assistance service provides information, advice, and assistance to veterans, their dependents, beneficiaries, representatives, and others applying for benefits administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs. The service is responsible for maintaining a benefits protection program for minors and incompetent adult beneficiaries. It also provides field investigative services for other VA components. The Veterans Assistance Service also provides information on veterans’ benefits to the various branches of the armed forces in the United States and abroad and to veterans residing in foreign countries through U.S. embassies and consular offices. The service also coordinates veterans’ activities with foreign governments. The National Cemetery System provides services to veterans, active duty personnel, reservist, and National Guard members with 20 years’ qualifying service and their families by operating national Cemeteries and furnishing headstones and markers for graves. The National Cemetery Service provides presidential memorial certificates to the loved ones of honorably discharged, deceased service members, and veterans. The National Cemetery Service also awards grants to aid states in developing, improving, and expanding veterans’ cemeteries. The cost of veteran care was increased by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There has been an increased for nursing home beds, rehabilitation, and mental health care. In recent years, the Veteran Administration has opened hundreds of new convenient outpatient clinics in towns across the United States. Veteran Administration has being push to the limit in recent years by the War on Terrorism. In December 2004, it was widely reported that Veteran Affairs funding crisis had become so severe that it could no longer provide disability ratings to veterans in a timely fashion. In his budget proposal for fiscal year 2009, President George W. Bush requested $38.7 billion or 86.5% of the Veteran Affairs budget for medical care alone. Like any government agency the Veteran Affairs have its own problems that cause them to be scrutinized by the media outlets. In May 2006, a laptop computer containing social security numbers of 26.5 million United States veterans was stolen from a Veterans Affairs analyst’s home. On August 2006, a computer containing personal information of 38,000 veterans went missing. The computer was recovered on 5 August 2006, two men were charged with the theft. Strict policies have also been enacted that require a detailed description of what laptop will be used for and where it will be located at any given time. There were also reports and investigations made that shows that patients at Veteran Administration hospital were ill treated by the staff working at the hospitals. Veterans groups and members of congress have criticized the Department of Veteran Affairs for failing to keep up with the demands for assistance for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. There were criticisms of backlogs of claims and problems veterans accessing VA services. ( Dolgoff and Feldstein, 2009.) References Dolgolff. R and Feldstein. D 2009 Understanding Social Welfare 8th ed. Boston: Pearson Friedman R. 2005. Veterans Affairs. Washington DC: Booksurge publishing Worden A and Knight R 2007. Veterans Benefits Administration. Washington DC: Veterans Affairs Dept U.S. Department of verterans Affairs/ The White House. Retrieval from Http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/fy2010 United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Retrieved from Http://www.va.gov History – Va History – About Va. http://www.va.gov/about_va/history.asp