Thursday, December 04, 2008





December 1, 2008

The system that cares for our veterans - especially the newly physically and psychologically wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan - needs bold, aggressive new leadership. As he builds a national security team, President-elect Barack Obama should work to transform this broken bureaucracy.

In the past few weeks, examples of that brokenness have surfaced. Locally, the Department of Veterans Affairs reassigned the director of its New York regional office and five other managers, because workers had falsified dates on claims. The goal of the backdating was to make it look as if the office had begun to process applications within the required time. An investigation also turned up a lot of unanswered mail, plus some claim documents in shredder bins.

Nationally, the department's inspector general found that other veterans' records had been readied for shredding. The department told regional offices to stop shredding until it could install better procedures. But why does it depend so much on paper, instead of moving more rapidly toward an efficient system for electronic processing of claims?

The regional flap sounds like an overworked staff trying - the wrong way - to deal with a huge backlog. We can't have veterans waiting 180-plus days for claims to get fully processed, while they're suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder or physical ailments - or both - and facing the same economic forces that are oppressing all of us.

The department needs inspiring, transformational leadership. But leadership alone won't suffice. The department also needs more staffing and better technology to reduce the backlogs. Vets shouldn't have to wait any longer for real change that addresses their needs promptly.

Copyright © 2008, Newsday Inc.

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