The disability benefits that veterans receive from the Department of Veterans Affairs have become the subject of a growing number of policy papers and editorials that argue those benefits are too generous or too easily given out.
However, what is often missing from those arguments is the reality behind the process — the steps veterans have to go through, the evidence they have to provide to prove their injuries were a result of their service, and how those benefits are tallied up and assigned a value. Veterans health benefits, particularly disability compensation, are far from simple or easy to navigate. They revolve around disability ratings, which range from 0 to 100% and despite claims to the contrary that have cropped up on social media — and in discussions on veterans’ care — disability benefits are not equivalent to welfare and being a “disabled veteran” in the eyes of the VA, does not bar someone from full-time work.
Between combat, training, and everyday accidents, veterans can leave military service with a number of debilitating injuries and illnesses, the most severe of which may qualify for a 100% disability rating from the Department of Veterans Affairs. These veterans often face growing medical expenses over their lifetime and their health conditions make it difficult for them to work at the level they’d be at if they hadn’t been injured as a result of their service.
Here’s how the VA determines eligibility ratings and what they actually mean.
Veterans disability benefits are not an entitlement
The first step in the process is that a veteran must submit a claim, which the VA then reviews before determining whether the veteran is eligible for benefits under the applicable federal regulation, according to the VA. After applying private medical records, military records, and other required documents, the VA determines whether a veteran’s disabilities are connected to their service.
The VA then decides if the veteran needs to undergo a VA examination, and based on the evidence presented, it assigns the veteran a rating based on the criteria found within the VA Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD).
Some of the health conditions that typically qualify for a 100% disability rating, according to the VA, include the loss of a hand and foot; the loss of both hands or both feet; and complete blindness from an injury.
But obtaining a 100% disability rating from the VA is “extremely challenging,” and veterans rarely receive such a rating for a single condition, said Michael Embrich, a Navy veteran, former member of the Secretary of Veterans Affairs Advisory Committee on the Readjustment of Veterans, and a former congressional staffer
“For many veterans, it can take 10 to 20 years post-service to reach this rating as their conditions worsen or new service-connected issues arise,” said Emrbich, who is also a columnist for Rolling Stone. “Typically, only the most critically wounded combat veterans receive a 100% rating immediately upon evaluation.”
Embrich noted that VA benefits are not intended to replace disabled veterans’ income. Rather, disability benefits are intended to compensate veterans for the loss that they have endured. In other words, these benefits are earned. They are not an entitlement.
The U.S. government does not place any restrictions on veterans with a 100% disability rating preventing them from working full time unless their rating includes Total Disability based on Individual Unemployability, or TDIU, Embrich said.
“In cases of TDIU, income is restricted to the poverty threshold (approximately $13,000 annually),” Embrich said. “The government generally encourages veterans to pursue employment and does not impose work restrictions solely based on a 100% disability rating.”
Disability rating ‘math’
Many veterans with a 100% disability rating have several injuries or ailments. But the process by which the VA calculates overall disability ratings for multiple health conditions is not straightforward arithmetic. There’s math, and then there’s VA math.
For example, if a veteran has three health conditions that are assigned 50%, 30% and 10% disability ratings respectively, that doesn’t mean the veteran will be assigned a 90% disability rating for all three, explained Scott Hope, deputy national service director for training with DAV (Disabled American Veterans).
The VA would take the highest disability rating the veteran has, in this case 50%, to determine the “remaining essential function of the veteran,” Hope said. In other words, the VA would view this veteran as 50% able.
That means the next highest disability rating would only apply to the 50% able side of the equation, Hope said. So, when the VA combines a 50% and 30% disability rating, it gets 15%. The overall rating would be 65%.
Under this scenario, that leaves the 10% disability rating, he said. At this point, the VA has determined that the veteran is 35% able, so 10% of that is 3.5%.
Disability ratings always end in zero, and they are rounded up or down, Hope said. That means the veterans combined disability rating of 68.5% would be rounded up to 70%.
“You would need 27 10% disabilities to get to 100%, if you had only 10% disabilities,” Hope said. “You would need 13 20%’s, nine 30%’s, six 40%’s, five 50%’s, and so on. Pretty soon, you’re just going up half a percent with each one of these things until you finally get to a number that actually increases your overall rating.”
The costs of 20 years of war
It hasn’t been easy for veterans of the Global War on Terrorism to navigate the VA’s disability process and receive the compensation they’re owed, said Rodger Pinto, on the policy and advocacy team with Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.
Many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans are suffering from different types of cancer as well as respiratory and digestive system ailments as a result of being exposed to toxins, Pinto told Task & Purpose
“The post 9/11 generation of veterans has had some big challenges when it comes to disability ratings, primarily because of the nature of the conflicts we were involved in and the length of those conflicts — toxic exposure being one of the first big challenges that our generation of veterans faced,” Pinto said. “And that required really significant levels of advocacy as well as a large piece of legislation moving through Congress: The PACT Act.”
Passed in August 2022, the PACT Act allows the VA to presume that Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffering from lung cancer and other diseases were sickened by their exposure to burn pits and other sources of toxins. It also makes it easier for veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange while serving outside Vietnam as well as veterans suffering from Gulf War Illness to file medical claims with the VA.
Another challenge facing Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is the combined effects of 20 years of war and constant deployments, Pinto said. Repeated exposure to concussions from blasts have taken a toll on many of these veterans.
Traumatic brain injury, TBI, is one of the signature injuries of both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars due to the widespread use of improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, by enemy forces, he said.
In January 2014, the VA recognized the following health conditions as those presumed to be connected to service for veterans diagnosed with service-connected TBI: Parkinson’s disease, unprovoked seizures, certain dementias, depression, and diseases of hormone deficiency.
Although the VA’s disability process has improved over the past 20 years, “It is still very much a work in progress,” Pinto said.
“It’s a big challenge for the veterans community, especially post passage of the PACT Act,” Pinto said. “We’ve seen a lot of folks claim that veterans benefits have exploded — the recent Economist article that came out calling veterans too generous. The article fails to mention that for the past 20 years they’ve also been engaged in warfare. Just kind of conveniently leaves out the fact that we’ve just had our longest conflict to date. We’ve sent soldiers and sailors and Marines to war, and at the end of the day, we don’t want to pay the bill for what that has cost them.”
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