Editorial: Houston leads nation in shameful backlog of veterans' benefit claims.

July 2, 2009 - Last Dec. 7, the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, President-elect Barack Obama spoke eloquently of the sacrifices made by America’s veterans, how many of them “are struggling even more than those who have not served — higher unemployment rates, higher homeless rates, higher substance-abuse rates, medical care that is inadequate. It breaks my heart.”

That same day, he announced his choice of retired Gen. Eric Shinseki to head the Department of Veterans Affairs, calling him “exactly the right person … to make sure we honor our troops when they come home.”

Today, those returning troops, and thousands more who served before them, are being greeted, not with honor, but with roadblocks and delays in accessing compensation, rehabilitation and medical care, as the VA attempts to cope with what has become a national crisis — a record backlog of disability claims fast approaching a million.

The situation is so dire that members of Congress and veterans’ advocates are calling for a fundamental overhaul of the VA’s procedures for handling claims. While improvements are in the works, it is unconscionable that these most deserving of Americans are being treated so shabbily. We urge Obama, Shinseki and Congress to do all in their power to redress this shameful state of affairs as promptly as is humanly possible.

One of the most troubling aspects of this debacle is that Texas is one of the worst offenders in its handling of claims: The Texas Veterans Commission’s latest figures show that the two regional VA offices in the state, Houston and Waco, have appeals pending for about 20,000 veterans — more than 10 percent of the nation’s total of about 200,000.

Nearly 18,000 applications for disability benefits are waiting to be processed in Houston, of which about 26 percent have been pending for more than six months, compared with a national percentage of 21 percent. At the Houston regional office, 11,389 claims are on appeal, more than anywhere else in the country.

Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, a national advocacy group, told the Chronicle’s Lindsay Wise: “The enormous claim backlog at VA’s Houston office provides overwhelming evidence that VA remains deeply mired in a serious nationwide crisis as a result of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the terrible economic recession exacerbated by the two wars.”

Valerie Martinez, spokeswoman for the Houston regional office, wrote in a statement that claims to that office had increased 26 percent in the past year, more than twice the national average. To facilitate speedier processing, some of the Houston claims have been outsourced to other centers, and the facility has been authorized to hire 105 additional employees.

That’s a start, but much more needs to be done. The VA in general, and the Houston office in particular, should move heaven and earth to give these veterans what they are owed. They’ve already sacrificed enough.

Houston Chronicle