In a parting dirty shot to this nations veterans who have been denied the right to hire attorney's in the claims process with the Veterans Administration since the late 1800's. They have the rules written that you can't pay an attorney more than ten dollars, or since they created the Court of Veteran Appeals, you are allowed to obtain a lawyer at this stage.
But by this point 5-7 years in the claim process the paperwork is so messed up, it is amazing anyone can weed thru the pile of papers and make any sense of it. So the Senate and Congress agreed in the last days of the 109th Congress to give veterans the right to hire an attorney after the first denial. A vast improvement 100 years late. But it has a hidden egg in it, explained below.
The VA Watchdog first posted a notice on 4 January 2007 warning the veteran community about a secret deal to revoke the right to hire the lawyers. The powerful veteran service organizations Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) and the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) had lobbied and managed to get one senator to put a hold on the bill S-3421.
He was persuaded to drop the hold in exchange for a prewritten change to the language that can be inserted as a rider to any other piece of law, that would amend the bill S-3421 in the beginning days of the 110th Congress.
To ensure that that would happen, the "repealing" legislation was written in the 109th Congress and is currently in a holding pattern. This a called a "draft" bill.
The sneaky part of this bill is that it just returns the code to its original form before changes were passed by Congress.
Now, whoever is trying to prevent veterans from being able to use attorneys in the VA claims process will, most likely, insert the "repealing" legislation as an amendment to another bill. This way it will, again, most likely, get lost in the shuffle and be passed without notice.
This is politics at its worst! And, veterans will really lose!
The worst part is that it was general knowledge in the Senate that this was going to be done.
I provided a copy of the "repealing" legislation to Jeff Schrade, Communications Director for Senator Larry Craig (R-ID), former Chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs (Craig is now the Ranking Minority Member). Schrade's response was, "We had heard that something was circulating, but this is the first time we had seen any legislative language."
Please go the
article at VA Watchdog and read the language of the insert, it is there in a photo insert which I do not know how to copy and insert here.
This is a slap to every veteran that has ever served this nation, to be denied the right to representation of our choice. They say we can pick any of the service organizations we want to represent us, this in fact is a choice of which veterans group do you want to, refuse to return phone calls, not prepare paperwork on time, lose paperwork so it does not get officially filed, be told by a Service Officer that you should be happy with a 30% rating and to quit appealing and messing the system up appeals, other veterans are waiting to get their claims worked.
I have had an American Legion Service Officer cost me 6 months back pay at the 100% rate because he refused to file my claim in July 2003 when I took it to him, I learned in Dec 2003 that it was still in my file at the American legion, I revoked his power of attorney and filed it myself.
I have been fighting my heart problems with the VA since Nov 2002, in May 2006 the new Service Officer for the DAV told me I needed to use the KISS method, keep it simple stupid, and file for hypertension only, excuse me why, I have had 7 heart attacks, a stroke within one year of discharge from Gulf War One, artherisclerosis, hypertension and am in a power chair due to the heart disease, COPD and bad back , and I should file a new claim asking for a 10% rating? Needless to say I fired him also, I revoked his POA.
Veterans need lawyers, why should we be denied the same rights as other Americans? Anyone can hire a lawyer to file their Social Security Disability claim at any step in the process, most hire one after the first denial, why shouldn't veterans be allowed that same right?
There are many people on this board that advocate for veterans, we lost one of the great ones this past week Janet G, she will be missed greatly and we all share in her husband Dale's loss, and they are in my prayers.
Jim Staro, Ilona, Possum, the Sergeant Major, there are many other retired military officers and NCO's and other government agency workers from the Intelligence community that share their thoughts and experience here at KOS, Lt Cmdr Jeff Huber, LC Johnson, all of their experiences and wisdom are what helps make this such a great site, America at it's best, where we work to promote ideas and political goals.
I ask that all of you to please write your Congressmen/Ladies, Senators and explain that this back door deal to deprive veterans of legal representation of their choice is a bad idea, if they want to better the bill then change it to the same languaga SSD lawyers get 25% of a maximum payment of 5400 dollars, instead of the 20% currently written. Trust me some of the compensation awards can approach as much as 100,000 if you are 100% disabled and have to fight with the VA for 4-5 years to obtain it.
Personally I would rather pay an attorney 20% of something than have to deal with a system that can leave you mad and broke after 5 years and you keep 100% of nothing. Then have the DAV send you a brochure stating why you should become a life member to help other veterans obtain their benefits.
Service Organizations can be a good thing, but while in self preservation mode, they don't care how many disabled veterans get hurt by bad representation.