EXCLUSIVE: Is Senate Veterans' Affairs Chairman Downplaying the VA Backlog Crisis?

Et tu, Bernie? Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt), who since being named chair of the Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs earlier this year has not hesitated to call out the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for failing to fix the unacceptable backlog of claims for disability benefits, today welcomed a VA report that outlines progress made on this backlog. But is he downplaying the problem with the latest numbers?

As the Senator noted today, and which I reported here last week, there has been a nearly 20 percent drop in the number of backlogged claims from a peak four months ago, according to a VA analysis. These are the same numbers President Obama commented cited in a speech last Saturday.

Said Sanders today in a statement, “As chairman, I am pleased to see the VA making significant progress in reducing what everyone continues to recognize as an unacceptable backlog. No veteran should have to wait years to receive the benefits they have earned. We must remain aggressive and we intend to closely monitor the situation to ensure that the progress continues, but I am glad we are now making progress toward the goal of ending the backlog by the end of 2015.”

The VA, which considers a claim to be backlogged when it has been pending for more than 125 days, announced today that as of Aug. 14, the backlog stood at 490,000 claims out of 773,000 total pending claims. But what most media outlets have failed to report, and what VA continues to ignore in its communication with the public - Sanders didn't mention this in his statement today, either - is the fact that there are 250,000 additional claims on appeal. 

Tragically, disability claim appeals, which often happen as the result of error by the VA, take four years or longer to get resolved. Bottom line: more than 1 million of our disabled veterans are still not getting the compensation they have earned.

Not that the recent reduction is insignificant. This is good news. But VA continues to downplay the real numbers. It should be noted that the VA has been handling a greatly increasing number of claims - more than 1 million a year for each of the past three years. These vets are coming both from post-9/11 veterans as well as those from the Gulf War, Vietnam War and other conflicts.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki set a goal of ending the backlog by the end of 2015 by, among other things, developing a digital record-keeping system in an agency that has been mired in a 19th century paper system that has painfully slowed claims handling. Most observers say that Shinseki's goal is still unlikely to be reached. 

But any progress is a good thing. 

As for Sanders, he has been a champion for veterans, but even he sometimes sips the Beltway Kool-Aid and downplays to a degree the VA backlog, which is nothing less than a national crisis.