Top 10 Veterans Stories in Today’s News

From the VA:

1.      Concern Expressed About VA’s Ability To Handle TBIs. In a front page story, the Washington Post (10/3, A1, Davenport, 605K) said that for “nearly a decade, the United States has been fighting wars in which soldiers are routinely exposed to brain-rattling blasts that can send ripples of compressed air hurtling through the atmosphere at 1,600 feet per second. Now, the military is struggling to come to terms” with traumatic brain injuries, which “can leave a soldier disqualified for service or require lifelong care that critics say the Department of Veterans Affairs isn’t equipped to handle.” The Post added that in August, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki “said…the military and the VA ‘simply cannot afford to be less than aggressive in our effort to identify, treat and rehabilitate TBI victims.'”

 2.      Governor, Veterans Affairs Criticized For Insisting On Medal Awards Ceremonies. The Monroe (LA) News Star (10/2, Hasten) reports that some Louisiana lawmakers “on a joint veterans affairs committee are upset with the Jindal administration for what they call ‘politicizing’ the award of medals” to service members. The paper notes that Gov. Bobby Jindal and Veterans Affairs Secretary Lane Carson “want veterans to attend patriotic ceremonies to receive the awards. They say it’s paying honor to the veterans for their service. But some lawmakers say they have received complaints from veterans that it’s promoting the governor more than veterans and they would like to receive their medals without a ceremony.” Carson responds that while members of his staff have delivered medals to veterans physically unable to attend a ceremony, except in cases of “hardship,” veterans should expect to receive their medals in a public ceremony. The head of the state veterans agency has also refused to allow state legislators to host medal awards ceremonies.

 3.      Connecticut Veterans Commissioner Chosen To Lead National Group. The AP (10/2) reports, “The leader of Connecticut’s state veterans service agency has become the first female president of a nationwide group of her peers. Linda Spoonster Schwartz was recently sworn in to lead the National Association of State Directors of Veterans Affairs.” Schwartz, a former Air Force officer and now a professor of nursing at Yale, has headed the Connecticut DVA since 2003.

 4.      American Legion Sends Its Evaluation Of VAMCs To Congress. In a PR-USA.net release (10/2), the American Legion announces that its annual evaluation of VA medical centers, known as its “System Worth Saving Task Force Report,” was delivered to Congress on September 28. Based on two-day visits to 32 VA facilities by American Legion national staffers, the report focuses on health care for women veterans, mental health care and timely budget appropriations. A 113-page executive summary notes that a challenge faced by VA health facilities “was not receiving the fiscal year 2010 budget in a timely manner. According to the finance officer at the Miami VAMC, during March 2010, the facility had not yet received their FY 2010 appropriations. Additionally, none of the medical centers have received confirmation about their FY 2011 budgets.” Other problems identified included “lack of facility clinical space for veterans and administrative space for staff, insufficient parking spaces, lack of competitive salaries for recruiting and retention of highly skilled and in-demand medical professionals.” Even so, the report stated that veterans questioned during all site visits “were content with their level of care and treatment at VA.” The entire report should be posted on the Legion’s website by the end of this month, the announcement also noted.

 5.      US Military Attempting To Deal With Suicide Problem. The Dallas Morning News (10/4, Tarrant, 257K) says suicides among US “service members have occurred with disturbing frequency during the nine years of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, leaving family members and military leaders struggling for answers.” The Army, which is “one year into a groundbreaking study with the National Institutes of Mental Health that could help explain the root causes” of the suicide problem, is, “along with the other military” branches, “adding mental health counselors and behavioral health programs to combat” the problem.

 6.      Bloomberg Details Workings Of Controversial Retained-Asset Death Benefits Account. In continuing coverage of the controversy over the “Alliance Account” retained-asset accounts Prudential provided as death benefits to service members’ survivors instead of lump-sum settlements, a nearly 1,100-word Bloomberg News (10/2, Evans) article appearing in nearly 100 media outlets details the workings of the decades-old arrangement. It reports that in Prudential Financials investments of death benefits, “the money comes from a source with deep pockets: the federal government. After a service member dies in combat — including the more than 4,000 who have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan — the Department of Veterans Affairs sends Prudential the full amount of each family’s life insurance coverage, usually $400,000. The government has paid Prudential $1.7 billion for these benefits since 2003, when the war in Iraq began, according to information provided by the VA.” Then, if the survivors of a veteran killed in combat ask for a lump-sum payment, “Prudential opens a retained-asset account, a quasi-checking account that allows families to draw money when they are ready to spend it. Until the money is used, it stays in Prudential’s corporate account. There, the insurer invests it, mostly in bonds, making returns as much as eight times what it is paying out to holders of the retained-asset account. What this means is that Prudential is investing — and profiting from — death benefits owed to service members’ families, using money provided by the government.” According to the VA, 95% of survivors have asked for lump-sum payments, but instead received from Prudential one of the 60,000 Alliance Account checkbooks it has sent out, covering over $7 billion in death benefits. In the first half of this year, Prudential earned 4.2% interest on retained funds, while paying survivors 0.5 percent. Bloomberg also notes that the VA “says it is taking steps to better help survivors.” VA director for insurance Thomas Lastowka says the agency “is working to ensure that all aspects of the Alliance Account and all choices to the beneficiary are made absolutely clear and that all facts concerning the administration of the accounts continue to be fully transparent and disclosed.” The VA announced on September 14 that Prudential would stop automatically sending checkbooks to survivors who request a lump-sum payment. The article also explores the 45-year history of the Servicemembers’ Group Life Insurance program, and notes the American Legion’s consistent opposition to having the military insurance program run by a private firm rather than by the government.
     Survivors’ Suits On Retained-Asset Accounts Have Seen Mixed Results. Another Bloomberg News article (10/2, Evans) notes that five survivors “filed a federal fraud lawsuit in Boston on Aug. 30 against Prudential claiming the insurer has earned as much as $500 million by improperly keeping beneficiaries’ money instead of paying out lump sums” and tracks lawsuits filed by survivors. It notes a Prudential spokesman’s insistence that several judges “have rejected claims against accounts like our Alliance Account, concluding that beneficiaries are in virtually the same position they would be in had the insurer sent them a check.” Summarizing earlier litigation, Bloomberg reports that, “Prudential won a lawsuit in 1999 in which a survivor complained about the Alliance Account, and that on September 9 a federal district court judge in Boston approved a settlement in a class-action lawsuit on the retained-asset accounts of Unum Group. Earlier, “the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit wrote, ‘The euphemistically named “Security Account,” accompanied with a checkbook, was no more than an IOU which did not transfer the funds to which the beneficiaries were entitled out of the plan assets.'” But another federal judge in Reno “threw out a lawsuit on Sept. 10 against MetLife. A survivor argued that the insurer had unfairly profited from its retained-asset account. While the judge found the survivor hadn’t suffered a loss, he wrote, ‘The court finds that the name of the account, the ‘Total Control Account Money Market Option,’ is inherently deceptive’ because it implies FDIC coverage.'” FDIC chair Sheila Bair in August wrote state insurance regulators noting that insurers should be careful not to imply that such accounts were FDIC-insured. An insurance law professor “said that regardless of the outcome of that lawsuit, it’s clear that Prudential and the VA wrongly manipulated a federal contract at the expense of military members and their relatives.”

 7.      Small Operation Makes Big Headway In Locating WWII Crash Sites. The AP (10/2, Carola) profiles Pacific Wrecks Inc., a non-profit organization set up to “”locate undiscovered US airplane wreckage and determine the fates of the thousands of American airmen still listed as missing in the Second World War’s Pacific Theater.” The one-man operation makes extensive use of computerized data and tips and queries from veterans and their families, and has a well-regarded website; its founder estimates that he has visited the sites of over 250 plane crashes. Over 48,000 World War II veterans from the Pacific Theater are still officially unaccounted for.

8.      Ceremony Will Honor Revolutionary War Soldier. The Greater Binghamton (NY) Press & Sun-Bulletin (10/2, Swartz) reports, “It’s been 235 years since a 14-year-old named Jonathan Hunt joined the Continental Army to fight against Great Britain. Buried in Riverside Cemetery, Hunt will be the honoree of a ceremony to mark his service to his country on Monday. The honor will be given by the Sons of the American Revolution.” A survey of the Tioga County’s 68 cemeteries begun two years ago has sparked local interest in marking veterans’ graves.

 9.      WWII Vet To Be Buried In National Cemetery 66 Years After His Death. The AP (10/2) said Lawrence Harris, a “West Virginia soldier whose remains went unidentified for decades after World War II,” is “returning to home soil.” Harris, who had been “buried…without identification” at the Ardennes American Cemetery in Belgium, “will be buried Oct. 8 at the West Virginia National Cemetery in Pruntytown, almost 66 years to the day after his death.” According to the AP, the Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command identified Harris’ remains.

 10.    Texas Man Sentenced On VA Disability Fraud. The Kilgore (TX) News Herald (10/2) reports that a 60-year-old local man “has been sentenced to federal prison for health care related fraud in the Eastern District of Texas,” according to the local US Attorney’s office. Convicted July 1 of six counts of health care fraud and one count of making a false statement, Jim Bob Shipp of Mount Pleasant was sentenced on September 28 to 63 months for the fraud counts and 60 months for the false statement. He was also ordered to pay over $800,000 in restitution for defrauding the VA disability program by overstating the severity and extent of his disability. After falsely representing to doctors that he had extreme vision loss in both eyes, Shipp was rated 100% disabled, although he should not have been rated more than 30% disabled.