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Military & Veterans: Protecting our Promises to our Military and Veterans

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Over the past century, America’s servicemembers have protected our country with bravery, determination, and patriotism. These individuals acted with heroism by liberating Europe and Asia from the scourge of totalitarianism, fighting repressive Communist regimes, freeing Kuwait from the brutality of Saddam Hussein, and promoting freedom around the globe. The veterans of today’s ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have likewise demonstrated their valor on behalf of their fellow citizens and a grateful nation.

To properly honor their patriotism, Kay Hagan believes that the federal government must provide to servicemembers and veterans world-class health care, a high quality of life, and protection from financial despair. As a U.S. Senator, Kay will work tirelessly to ensure that all servicemembers and veterans are appropriately recognized for their service to the country. To achieve this end, she believes that the federal government must:

• Improve the Quality of Life for Veterans, Reservists, and Guard Members by Expanding Compensation and Other Benefits
• Guarantee World-Class Heath Care for Veterans in State-of-the-Art Medical Facilities
• Efficiently and Effectively Process Benefit Claims by Veterans
• Protect and Honor the Sacrifices Made by Our Troops

IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR VETERANS

Kay believes that veterans deserve a quality of life worthy of their valiant service on behalf of our country. In the last two years, Congress has provided more funding, over Republican objections, to permit the veterans of Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom to receive many of the same benefits that their predecessors in service received. Kay was especially proud to state her public support for the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act (21st Century GI Bill), which extends education and housing benefits to veterans and servicemembers who have undertaken at least 36 months of active-duty service after September 11, 2001. Despite this monumental progress, she believes that our federal government must address other factors that may enhance a veteran’s quality of life.

Ensure Veterans’ Ability to Earn a Livelihood. After years of service to their country, veterans, including National Guard members and Reservists, face myriad challenges in achieving gainful employment. These challenges include veterans’ ability to encourage former employers to retain or re-hire them, to acquire the skills they need to increase their earning potential, and to find specific types of employment in the locations in which they want to live. Kay will sponsor a package of measures that will help veterans earn a living after their active duty ends. These measures will:

• Provide equal employment protections, such as the right to re-employment, for National Guard members under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 2004 (USERRA).
• Hold employers liable for damages if they illegally prevent active-duty Reservists from returning to their jobs after serving.
• Authorize a joint VA-Labor Department study to investigate underrepresented fields of employment in certain geographic areas and help veterans procure employment in needed occupational fields.

Enhance Awareness Among Veterans Regarding Benefits Eligibility. Given the wide range of benefits available to veterans and the diverging eligibility requirements relating to such benefits, veterans must traverse an increasingly confusing system in order to obtain benefits. She believes that the Armed Forces should improve upon their efforts to describe benefits and eligibility requirements to active-duty servicemembers during service, which will facilitate an easier transition from service to veteran status. Further, Kay believes we should encourage the VA to conduct outreach to recently separated vets within six months to a year of separation to ensure that such veterans are aware of their eligibility for benefits and to evaluate whether they are suffering from mental health problems that manifest after service.

Give Veterans a Fighting Chance to Own Their Own Home. Despite several housing programs intended to end the scourge of homelessness in America’s veteran population, homelessness continues to plague veterans disproportionately. According to one VA study, approximately 154,000 veterans are homeless on any given night and veterans comprise nearly one-fourth of our country’s adult homeless population. We must strive to alleviate the root causes of homelessness – which include mental and physical disabilities and substance abuse disorders – and provide shelter for homeless veterans seeking to get back on their feet. Equally important, we must work hard to encourage homeownership among veterans who seek stability as they make their transition into civilian life. Kay will support a package of programs intended to eradicate rampant homelessness among veterans and promote homeownership.

• Establish a fund to help veterans avoid sale, foreclosure, or seizure of their own home through counseling and employment opportunities, and extend the current 90-day grace period under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act to a 180-day grace period.
• Conduct a pilot program that will determine the best manner in which to identify veterans likely to fall into homelessness and to provide counseling to such individuals.
• Apportion financial assistance for supportive services for very low-income families of veterans susceptible to impending homelessness.

GUARANTEE WORLD-CLASS HEALTH CARE FOR VETERANS

Large numbers of casualties emanating from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have left VA health care facilities flooded with new patients and facing shortfalls in staffing and maintenance. Moreover, many military and VA facilities are not equipped to handle the signature health problems of these wars, such as Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and other mental health injuries. Family caregivers, who serve the essential role of caring for their loved ones at home, often lack the training and support needed to provide the level of assistance needed to combat service-connected injuries. Kay believes that we must bolster our military and veterans’ health care systems by ensuring reliable funding, improving diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental health injuries, and enhancing the infrastructure of these systems to cope with the influx of troops and veterans recently injured in the theater of war.

Make Funding for Veterans’ Health Care Mandatory. Perhaps no evidence is more indicative of how broken Washington is than the fact that VA hospitals are forced to curtail services as they await Congress’s appropriation of funds for VA health care. In America, we would never accept a situation where seniors receive inadequate treatment because Congress has failed to provide the funds mandated by law to be allocated to Medicare. The same should be said for veterans’ health care, which is every bit as important and every bit as deserved. In the Senate, Kay will sponsor legislation that makes VA health care funding mandatory, so that veterans’ health will be insulated from Congress’s frequent failures to complete its appropriations process. This step will provide VA hospitals with reliable funding, will ensure uninterrupted care for veterans, and will allow the VA health care system to adapt in a timely fashion to meet the evolving needs of our newest veterans.

Mandate Universal Mental Health Screening Pre- and Post-Combat. Recent studies estimate that nearly one-third of all Operation Iraqi Freedom veterans face serious mental health issues, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), depression, or anxiety. The severity of these mental health problems is exacerbated by multiple tours of duty and inadequate time between deployments, both of which are an unfortunate feature of the flawed military strategy in Iraq over the past five years. Despite increased attention to mental health problems, the only screening of troops for mental illness is paperwork that requires troops to self-report any mental health problems, and that delays their homecoming if they do report problems. Kay recognizes that the military must have the resources to more accurately diagnose mental health problems so that troops can receive the treatment they need and that troops must have the comfort to honestly report problems without fear of stigma or reprisal. In the Senate, she will sponsor legislation, recommended by the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA), that would require confidential in-person mental health screening and TBI screening for all troops, both before these troops enter the combat zone and at least 90 days after a tour of duty. Compulsory in-person screening will permit accurate and timely diagnoses of mental health disease and reduce the stigma currently associated with seeking assistance.

Increase Staffing of Mental Health Professionals in the DOD and the VA. Even as the number of diagnoses woefully underestimates the number of troops suffering from mental health problems, the DOD and the VA lack sufficient mental health staff to treat mental health issues once they have been diagnosed. The population of licensed psychologists working for DOD to treat troops has shrunk by 20 percent in recent years and approximately one third of Vet Centers report that they are understaffed for mental health treatment. Kay recognizes that current staffing of mental health professionals must be increased to meet the growing mental health needs in both the active-duty and veterans populations. She will support funding for VA hospitals and Vet Centers to hire more psychiatrists, psychologists, and social workers to treat veterans suffering from mental health disease. In particular, she will push for a pilot program that will train recently separated veterans in the field of mental health. Such a program would simultaneously provide new employment opportunities for separated veterans and bolster the ranks of mental health professionals treating military personnel and veterans. Furthermore, she will support proposals providing college loan forgiveness for mental health care professionals and other allied health care providers assisting the DOD and VA.

Elevate Suicide Prevention as a Priority. For the past 30 years, the suicide rate among military servicemembers has been less than that of the general population in our country. However, recent studies indicate that suicide rates have risen to levels nearly comparable to the general population and that the military’s approach to preventing suicide is not well-equipped to stem this troubling phenomenon. To reverse this negative trend, Kay will support an initiative that compels DOD to share “best practices” for suicide prevention across all the services, building on a nationally-recognized Air Force suicide prevention program. She also believes that Congress should allocate more resources to identify veterans who are at a high risk for suicidal tendencies. Further, Kay will support suicide prevention training as part of combat life-saver training, as recommended by IAVA, and other efforts to destigmatize mental health injuries within the military.

Provide Appropriate Funding for the VA Construction and Maintenance. The large increase in the veterans’ population necessitates construction, expansion, and maintenance of VA facilities, which cannot currently meet the needs of veterans. Despite articulating an understanding of the need to authorize more funding for VA construction and initiating the Capital Asset Realignment for Enhanced Services (CARES) program, the Bush Administration has not lived up to its promises to adequately fund VA construction projects. Veterans’ service organizations estimate that over $1 billion is needed annually in the coming years to support VA construction and maintenance needs, but in its most recent budget request, the Bush Administration requested less than $600 million. Kay understands that the Bush Administration’s request is insufficient to restore aging VA hospitals, modernize VA facilities to meet new and growing health problems suffered by veterans, and build new hospitals to treat veterans across the country. She will support legislation that adequately funds VA construction and maintenance projects, consistent with the needs of the veterans’ population.

Give Family Caregivers Needed Support. The families of active-duty servicemembers and veterans are vital to the recovery and well-being of disabled current and former troops. In many cases, husbands, wives, and children must take on the role of caregiver for servicemembers and veterans afflicted with physical or mental health maladies suffered from their service to our country. Kay will work hard to ensure that the federal government supports these caregivers as they assist their injured spouses or children. Kay will fight to enact the following policies for family caregivers:

• Give family members of active-duty troops full access to mental health care on military bases.
• Allocate more resources for improved case-management, counseling, and follow-up for family caregivers assisting spouses or children with brain injuries.

EFFICIENTLY AND EFFECTIVELY PROCESS BENEFIT CLAIMS BY VETERANS

Veterans disabled by injury or disease incurred during active military service depend on their monthly disability compensation benefit to maintain their livelihood and to pay for expenses relating to their disabilities. Despite the necessity of this compensation, many veterans must wait for months on end to have disability claims resolved by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). In fact, the Government Accountability Office reports approximately 400,000 pending disability claims, 83,000 of which have been pending for six months or more. As a member of a military family, Kay believes that this reality is an unconscionable outcome for the men and women who must cope with disabilities after serving their country with dignity and courage. She believes it is essential that the VA quickly resolve disability claims and will therefore work to reform the VA’s processing system for such claims.

Implement Information Technology to Efficiently Resolve Disability Claims. The current system of disability claims processing at the VA is both antiquated and inefficient. At each stage of the multi-faceted claims appeal process, VA staff must have a paper copy of a claimant’s file on hand to work on a disability compensation case. The VA must implement an electronic system to give veterans the benefits they have earned. In particular, Kay believes that the following information technology should be employed to allow veterans to receive their benefits in a timely manner:

• An electronic case system to accelerate the appeals process and provide seamless transition of claims records between VA regional offices. These improvements will increase the accuracy of claims processing and speed up the time frame under which claims appeals are resolved.
• An electronic database that allows a determination of service-connection for disability benefits to automatically apply to provision of other benefits, such as education and housing. With such a system, veterans will no longer be required to file separate applications for each benefit claim, each of which must assert service connection. Together, these technological improvements will save taxpayers money and accelerate the adjudication of benefit claims for veterans.
• A joint DOD-VA electronic health records system, which will provide for an easier transition from DOD disability benefits to VA benefits once a servicemember is no longer on active duty.

Determine the Efficacy of Merging the Military and Veterans’ Disability Systems Into a Single System. Several blue-ribbon commissions and academic studies have found that disabled veterans have difficulty making the transition from active duty to veteran status because of “lost paperwork, a drop-off in the quality of care, and the lack of coordination between two distinct disability rating processes.” These panels have recommended varying degrees of integration of the two systems, including merging the DOD and VA disability ratings systems into one and installing a case management system to shift troops from the DOD to VA. Kay will support legislation requiring the VA and DOD to evaluate these options for integration and to ultimately adopt one of them. She believes that integration is necessary to reduce the uncertainty that many veterans face in receiving continuous disability benefits.

Hire New VA Staff and Encourage Centralized Staff Training. Implementation of an advanced information technology system for adjudication of claims is necessary, but not sufficient, to improve the claims backlog. In situations where automation is not appropriate and human judgment is required, the VA must have an adequate number of staff members to rapidly process claims, and this staff must be well-trained to process claims with speed and precision. Kay believes that the following measures should be implemented to improve the functioning of VA field staff.

• Hire additional VA staff members to process claims.
• Reorganize VA field offices to ensure greater consistency and accuracy of claims resolution.
• Support the VA’s recent initiative to train rating specialists at a central location, rather than having each specialist trained at their field office by local supervisors. Such training will resolve the current inconsistency in VA claim decisions among field offices. She recognizes, however, that the continuity and enhancement of this new program depends upon full funding by Congress. Kay will support such funding in the U.S. Senate.
• Increase availability of specialized staff at regional processing centers to deal with specific types of claims and ensure faster claims processing.

PROTECT AND HONOR OUR TROOPS

Kay knows from first-hand experience about the sacrifices that are made by members of the military and their families. She will insist on honoring these sacrifices by recruiting and retaining the best troops, then ensuring that we take care of them and their families by providing adequate pay and safety, sufficient home stays, health care and educational benefits.

Improve Troop Readiness and Morale By Instituting Adequate Dwell Time. The men and women of our Armed Forces have performed with professionalism and distinction during their service in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the Bush Administration has frequently extended tours of duty and reduced the time between tours of duty, or “dwell time,” for regular members of the Armed Forces and members of National Guard and Reserve components. These practices constitute a departure from recommended military objectives, which aim for a 1:2 deployment-to-dwell ratio for regular components and which seek five years between deployments for units in a Reserve component. The current lack of dwell time may adversely affect the readiness of military units to respond to global emergencies, reduce opportunities for retraining, diminish the military’s ability to recruit motivated volunteers to join its ranks, increase troops’ vulnerability to post-traumatic stress and other mental casualties of war, and prohibit troops – a record number of whom are parents – from spending valuable time with their families and readjust to life outside the combat zone. Kay supports legislation requiring a 1:1 dwell time ratio for regular components and a 1:3 ratio between deployments for Reserve and Guard components, waivable only if the President certifies to Congress that the deployment of a unit is needed to meet a vital national security emergency or if a servicemember voluntarily seeks to mobilize.

Protect Our Troops with Proper Armor. Shortages and degradation of military equipment have had a deleterious effect on both combat missions and training of our troops. Regular Army units have been designated with historically low readiness ratings and a large majority of non-mobilized Army Guard and Reserve units recently received the lowest possible readiness rating. Troops in combat reported shortages of interceptor body armor, up-armored Humvees, add-on armor kits, and Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles. In addition, all 50 Governors have expressed their concern that their Guard units have been unable to adequately respond to natural disasters or potential homeland security threats because their equipment has been re-allocated for use in Iraq and Afghanistan. Kay believes that sending our troops into battle without the proper equipment disrespects the honor of our servicemembers and puts them in unnecessary danger. In the U.S. Senate, she will fight to ensure that the billions of dollars used to fund the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are allocated properly to provide servicemembers with the equipment and armor they need to survive. In particular, Kay will require the Pentagon to report detailed equipment reset expenditures within procurement accounts to demonstrate that funds allocated for military equipment are indeed utilized for that purpose.

Increase The Size of the Military While Improving Recruitment And Retention. Our military is overstretched. Kay believes we should increase the size of the military, which will allow for increased training time and ensure that we have sufficient troops to handle conflicts as they arise. Kay supports calls to increase the size of the military by 100,000. As part of the effort to increase military size, Kay knows we will need to improve our recruitment and retention efforts, rather than relying on temporary solutions like “stop loss” program and lowered standards for enlistment. Kay promises that she will work to properly honor the sacrifices of our troops, military families and veterans by ensuring sufficient pay, training time, safety equipment, health care and educational benefits.

Value and Respect the Sacrifices of Military Families. Families of military members face a specific strain unique to these families. In order to ensure that we are honoring their sacrifices, and to help take care of families back home while troops are deployed, Kay knows we must do everything in our power to look out for their quality of life. In the state Senate, she supported extended educational benefits to family members, and she worked to secure funds to assist families with deployment-related expenses. In the U.S. Senate, she will support the goals outlined last fall by General George Casey, who said that we must “build a partnership with Army families and improve family readiness by standardizing and funding existing family programs and services; increasing accessibility and quality of health care; improving soldier and family housing; ensuring excellence in schools, youth services, and family child care; and expanding education and employment opportunities for Family members.”

Guard Against Identity Theft and Credit Card Fraud. Active-duty servicemembers are particularly vulnerable to identity theft and credit card fraud because of their frequent movement and tours of duty that take them out of the country for extended periods of time. Such fraud can damage servicemembers’ financial well-being, ruin their credit scores, and cause great hardship. As a state Senator, Kay supported bills that would protect veterans from identity theft and unfair consumer credit fees. In the U.S. Senate, she will not only fight to prevent veterans from credit fraud, but will also support legislation that safeguards the identity and credit of active-duty servicemembers. She will also support efforts to raise awareness about the potential for credit fraud among members of the military.

Secure Further Educational Benefits for Active-Duty Servicemembers. Kay was proud to publicly support the Post-9/11 Educational Assistance Act of 2008, which extends education benefits to regular members of the Armed Forces and Reservists who have served on active-duty since September 10, 2001. Kay has also been a strong supporter of educational benefits for servicemembers in the state Senate, where she voted in favor of bills granting full refunds and other assistance to community college students called to active duty. Kay will support measures in the U.S. Senate that require higher education institutions to refund tuition for students called to active duty and that provide incentives for universities to buy back textbooks purchased by such students, if feasible.

Provide Relief to Servicemembers in Paying Bills to Utilities Providers. Given that the changing needs of national security necessitate constant movement by servicemembers, Kay will support legislation that permits deployed or transferred servicemembers to terminate or suspend their contracts for these services without fee or penalty. By doing so, servicemembers who are transferred to another base or who are deployed for combat will no longer face substantial difficulty in meeting their obligations under contracts for basic utilities, as well as for cellular telephones, television, Internet, and car insurance.

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