Politics & Government

Congress Passes Meng's Veterans Disability Claims Bill

Bill aims to cut down on wait time for veterans to receive their benefits.

The U.S. House of Representatives has passed a bill sponsored by Rep. Grace Meng, D-Flushing, that would eliminate a massive backlog of disability claims for veterans in Queens.

Currently, veterans in the five boroughs have been forced to wait an average of 361 days to receive their benefits, which is one of the longest wait times in the nation.

But Congress passed Meng’s VA Regional Office Accountability Act, which was part of a broader piece of legislation that aims to improve the processing of disability claims.

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“Finally, we are one step closer towards reducing the disgraceful backlog that has forced disabled veterans to wait way too long for the critical benefits they require,” Meng said. “We expect that with the passage of this bill, the inexcusable delays that our veterans have been forced to endure will soon be a thing of the past.”

As of Oct. 19, more than 717,000 veterans have disability claims waiting to be processed by the Department of Veterans Affairs, nearly 411,562 of which exceed the department’s processing goal of 125 days.

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Nationwide, the average time for the VA to process claims is 312 days, but Queens’ average time is 49 days longer, Meng said.

Additionally, nearly 12 percent of the claims processed by the New York regional VA office contained errors, which was higher than the VA’s target error rate of two percent.

Disability benefits cover everything from major combat injuries and post traumatic stress disorder to Agent Orange exposure.

Meng’s legislation would require annual reports on the VA’s regional offices that fail to meet the target of processing claims within 125 days with 98 percent accuracy.

The reports are meant to speed up benefits by allowing Congress and the VA to better understand the challenges that prevent regional offices from reaching their goals.

In the report, the VA offices would be required to explain why they did not meet the goal, what resources it needs to meet it and how the failure to meet the goal affected the performance evaluation of the office’s director.

The backlog in claims regionally has been attributed to an increase in veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, extending additional benefits to Vietnam-era veterans, a lack of adequate staffing and an antiquated system that is not computerized.

New York’s regional office is located in downtown Manhattan. It serves approximately 608,000 veterans in Queens and the other four boroughs, Long Island and New York State.


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