The House Committee on Veterans Affairs, HVAC, has launched a new page, Trials in Transparency, detailing the long wait for responses from the VA in connection with congressional inquires. Currently HVAC has 95 pending requests and a dozen on those requests for information have been pending since 2012.
Although it is concerning that the VA has been ignoring our representatives; the backlog continues and some Veterans initial applications have been pending since 2011. The VA recently launched a Two-Year-Old Claims Initiative and processed nearly all claims pending for over two years in a 60 day period. US Congressman Jeff Miller, Chairman, House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, recently commented on the backlog and this initiative.
“Any progress toward eliminating the backlog is welcome news. But we cannot forget that the department is still far short of its own backlog performance benchmarks for 2013. Additionally, one can’t help but question how the department was able to process most of its two-year-old claims in just 60 days. If two months was all VA needed to adjudicate these claims, why did the department let them sit for two years or longer? Furthermore, what will happen to the backlog once VA employees are taken off of mandatory overtime and returned to regular duties? Nevertheless, when it comes to evaluating VA’s success in combating the backlog, the two most important numbers are zero and 2015. In other words, this problem won’t be solved unless the backlog is at zero by 2015, just as VA leaders have promised.”
Updated in January of 2016.
