VA wrongly tells veterans they're dead, cuts off benefits

[frigidmagi]

Military Times

Mike Rieker, a 69-year-old Navy veteran who served in Vietnam, relies on his Veterans Affairs benefits to get him through the month.

That's why the Pinellas County, Florida, resident was alarmed when his VA check didn't show up in his bank account Monday. He called the Department of Veterans Affairs office to find out why, and their response was stunning: The benefits had been suspended because he was dead.

"Well, I'm not," Rieker retorted. "I woke up this morning and I'm feeling rather chipper, in fact."

As it turns out, Rieker is one of six Tampa Bay area residents who were getting veterans benefits, but then were declared dead — despite being very much alive.

U.S. Rep. David Jolly, who represents a section of Florida's Gulf Coast near Tampa, said he's handled a total of five such cases in the past 18 months, and a neighboring congressman in the Tampa Bay area received a similar call as well.

"It's a very serious matter," said Jolly. "How many cases are there nationwide?"

Jolly is calling on VA Secretary Robert A. McDonald to investigate the scope of the problem.

Last November, Mary Ann Clough opened a letter that the VA sent to her house. It was addressed to her family, offering condolences on her death. It said the government would stop sending the checks she received each month for the military service of her deceased second husband.

Clough visited the bank and, indeed, money was missing from her account.

"The bank told me, 'No, you're deceased,'" the 86-year-old Clearwater resident said.

Jolly's office helped both Clough and Rieker.

Rieker said Thursday that the VA assured him the money will be deposited in his account by mid-month.

"Apparently they confused me with someone who had the same name who died in June in Arizona," he said.

Earlier in the summer, the VA said it couldn't say how many veterans died while waiting to sign up for health care.

Congress approved a sweeping overhaul of the department in response to several headline-grabbing woes, but the VA continues to be plagued by missteps, including an internal report indicating that nearly one-third of veterans with pending applications for VA health care likely have already died. VA officials said they were unable to determine how many veterans died, whether they truly were seeking VA health care or had merely indicated interest in signing up.

[B4UTRUST]

Part of this problem is a staffing shortage and huge budget issues. Other parts of this is just general bureaucratic ineptitude in a paper-based system trying to handle records for probably 12-15 million people while slowly shifting to a digital records system. It is a nightmare and mistakes are bound to happen in the process. But the VA is a clusterfuck of massive proportions no matter how you spin it and it's not getting the help it needs to fix itself. Of course, to be fair, I sure as hell don't know what needs to be done to fix it either, though getting all the records digitized and records actually gone through to verify data is certainly a step in the right direction.

[Josh]

How fucked up is the VA?

Man, I fucking tried to give them free labor and they went all bureaucratic on me. It's like "Fuckwits, I am a licensed professional in good standing who will help people with their pain problems for FREE" and they're all like "Noooooooooooo."

AMVETs couldn't hook me up either, so I just moved in at the VFW.

[Batman]

We're talking about the government. They may not be legally allowed to use people who haven't gone through a ridiculous screening process and /or meet completely idiotic requirements.

[Josh]

Good point. Who knows how long the Al Quaeda infiltration of the nation's massage therapy programs have been going on?

[B4UTRUST]

Bats is pretty much right on this though, Josh.

But to answer the question how fucked up is the VA? The answer is Very. It's a gigantic bureaucratic clusterfuck that would give an Vogon an orgasm and possibly cause them to steal the idea to take back to Vogsphere with a sticky note saying 'Learn, guys!'. It's a mismanaged, understaffed, underbudgeted ass backwards department that is probably one of the worst in the whole of the government. And it is the best we have and the best we're apparently willing to do for vets.

Me? Bitter? Angry? Nahhh...

[General Havoc]

Good point. Who knows how long the Al Quaeda infiltration of the nation's massage therapy programs have been going on?

Well, I mean, this is YOU we're talking about...

[Josh]

Good point. Who knows how long the Al Quaeda infiltration of the nation's massage therapy programs have been going on?

Well, I mean, this is YOU we're talking about...

"November 8th 2015 was when I was fucking condemned to a life of taking the bus."

Thanks bitch.