Cagle Post: It’s Time For New Leadership At The VA

In his 2013 State of the Union Address, President Barack Obama promised his administration “will keep faith with our veterans [by] investing in world-class care, including mental health care, for our wounded warriors; supporting our military families; and giving our veterans the benefits, education, and job opportunities they have earned.”

But the reality for former members of the armed forces is often a multiple-year wait for claims to be filed through the Veterans Administration for health benefits and retirement pay. VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who said in a recent interview that “[n]o veteran should have to wait for claims” and is himself a retired four-star general, created a 2000 percent backlog increase for applications for veterans’ benefits, with 900,000 unprocessed disability claims remaining today. By the VA’s own projections, that number will quickly surpass 1,000,000.