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Posted on 09/24/2007 1:13:15 PM PDT by Right Winged American
Marjorie Bowzer has a drawer full of documents relating to her husband’s illness. At 88 and suffering dementia, he now lives at the state veterans’ nursing home on Ramsey Street. (staff photo by David Smith)Once, he was Maj. Charles Bowzer, leader of soldiers in World War II, Korea and Vietnam.
After retiring from the Army in 1967, he taught Boy Scouts how to camp. He judged cribbage games and baked brownies for his grandchildren. Everyone called him Uncle Charlie.
No one thought to worry about what would happen to his family if something happened to him, because, his wife says, everyone believed the Army would take care of him.
As it turns out, the Army hasn’t.
Bowzer has waited for months for the Department of Veterans Affairs to determine whether he is eligible for disability benefits. His claim is swamped in bureaucratic limbo, along with more than 500,000 others.
Bowzer’s wife, Marjorie, worries that he will die before the benefits ever come through.
Bowzer is 88. His feet rotted in World War II during hikes in wet boots, and they never healed. Earlier this year, when the infection started spreading up his body, doctors amputated first one leg, then the other, at the knees.
His wife believes that time in the jungles of Vietnam, where U.S. forces sprayed Agent Orange, caused diabetes to attack his organs.
Bowzer had a stroke last fall that led to dementia.
Before the stroke, he lived at home with Marjorie. Now, he lives in the wing for patients with mental problems at the state veterans’ nursing home on Ramsey Street.
Each month, $2,600 of Charles Bowzer’s savings goes to the home. Marjorie filed a claim with the VA on her husband’s behalf in January, asking that it help pay for his care. In March, she got a letter acknowledging her request.
As of mid-August — seven $2,600 checks later — she had not heard back. A reporter contacted the VA around that time to ask about Charles Bowzer’s case. Shortly afterward, Marjorie Bowzer said, representatives of the VA started calling and writing to her.
“I think that they are waiting for him to die,” Marjorie Bowzer said, “so they won’t have to pay.”
This is what has happened to many military veterans of the Greatest Generation: They send requests to the VA and other federal departments that are too busy to answer them. They wait. They send more letters. Sometimes they die before they get a response.
Of the more than 500,000 disability claims that are outstanding around the country, roughly 18,000 are from North Carolina.
Delays at the VA come from the high number of claims, the low number of people to process them and breakdowns in communication among federal agencies, said Vince Hancock, a spokesman for the VA office in Winston-Salem, which handles North Carolina veterans’ claims.
Case managers average five months to process a claim. Some claims take longer. The oldest claim in North Carolina has remained unanswered for more than 2 years.
For Charles Bowzer’s family, time has dragged hour by hour.
In the beginning, Marjorie was optimistic. She’d been an Army wife during the 1940s and grew her own vegetables to help reduce food shortages during World War II. She trusted her government.
A few months went by without a response, and she grew anxious. Her husband’s medical needs come first, she said. But she worried about how to pay the household bills.
She sought help from a Cumberland County social worker who specializes in veterans claims.
Each time Marjorie or the social worker called the VA, Marjorie said, a case manager in Winston-Salem would say the office did not have papers that the social worker already had sent.
The social worker declined to be interviewed because of privacy concerns, but Hancock, the VA spokesman, said the VA office received multiple documents from the Bowzers between January and August.
In July, the social worker sent a letter saying that Charles Bowzer could be nearing the end of his life and asking the VA to rush its decision. But, Hancock said, the last time the VA wrote to the Bowzers was March.
“That’s what, four or five months? That’s a long time to wait without hearing anything,” Hancock said. “We really should have done a letter to the Bowzers to let them know the status.”
As more time passed with no answer, Marjorie went from frustration to anger. Her husband made a career of the military because he believed in protecting his country. Where was the protection promised him?
“I always thought that the country would take care of them, because it was drummed into my head,” she said. “They don’t need to put him in a convertible and parade him up and down on Veterans Day and then, thhhhp , throw him back away again.”
Hancock argued adamantly that the VA is not trying to cheat people such as the Bowzers.
“This isn’t a courtroom, where it’s us against the veteran,” he said. “Our job is to give the veteran every benefit the law allows, and at the highest level.”
Some veterans rights advocates disagree.
In July, two nonprofit organizations that represent veterans filed a class action lawsuit against the VA, saying the federal department takes too long to process claims.
Paul Sullivan, executive director of Veterans for Common Sense, one of the nonprofit groups that filed the lawsuit, said veterans who file claims now face some of the longest delays in history. Sullivan, who does not represent the Bowzers, said veterans of the Vietnam War increasingly are filing claims for mental health problems and issues related to Agent Orange exposure. At the same time, Sullivan said, veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan are returning with problems and claims of their own.
Claims filed by people such as Bowzer, Sullivan said, get “caught in a blizzard of paperwork in Washington, D.C.”
“He’s hit VA with his claim in the middle of a perfect storm,” Sullivan said.
He said the department does not have enough money to pay for the employees it would need to handle all the claims.
But veterans and their families — people such as the Bowzers — don’t care about the bureaucratic problems in Washington and Winston-Salem. They want the help the government promised them, and they want the help in time for it to matter.
“It’s not something he’s asking for,” Marjorie said. “He earned it. All those veterans earned it.”
Some people have advised Marjorie to apply for Medicaid for her husband. She said the word disdainfully — “Medicaid,” curling off her lips like bad-tasting smoke — and pointed to a picture of her husband from 1966. He is wearing his Army officer’s dress uniform and has high cheekbones and round eyes. His hair is parted neatly on one side, and his uniform is starched and pressed.
“Medicaid is welfare,” Marjorie said. “Look at that proud man. Do you think I’d put him on welfare?”
Marjorie’s fear that her husband will die before the VA answers their claim is real — there have been times when Charles Bowzer almost did not make it. Doctors who removed his right leg on Aug. 22 told Marjorie he might not live through the surgery. But he did. And still his family did not know if the VA would pay for his care.
Hancock said the VA is sensitive to those issues.
If Charles Bowzer, or any other veteran, dies while a claim is still being processed, Hancock said, there is something a veteran’s family can do:
They can file another claim and wait for the VA’s response.
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But that's all just anecdotal, don't you know!
And that's not counting the Afganistan/Iraq wounded warriors delays and denials of benefits and compensation THEY'VE earned from the Department of Veterans Affairs ...
The same crack team of government bow wows is making ready to run our health care...
He’s 88 for heavens sake. People eventually die of something.
I don't intend to 'go softly into that good night;
I intend to rage; RAGE against the dying of the light!
Every time a Democrat tells me about govt. paid health care, I tell them to visit their local VA Hospital.
Two things; show your appreciation of the veterans, and take a good look at what government paid/controlled health care LOOKS like.
They usually don't, though.
This is a sad truth throughout medical care, worldwide, that the old get far less care than the young.
Today there may be a way around some of this neglect, ironically because there is expected to be an enormous increase in the demand for care for the elderly. The US cannot provide for such care directly, but it can “outsource” it to Mexico.
That is, by dint of our greater wealth, we can indirectly provide much better care in nursing and retirement home communities South of the border than what we can provide directly here. And with an economy of scale, seniors may be able to get better care there than they could ever get in the US, unless they were very wealthy.
Certainly the care will be provided by Mexican caregivers, doctors, nurses and other workers; many of whom speak English. And the flood of money for many such patients will result in a high level of quality, as well.
Already this is happening to some extent. The difference will be in the creation of many new communities designed for such care, and to the quality standards Americans expect.
This applies to veterans, as well. It will be better, and more cost effective, for them to receive care in Mexico rather than decaying Veteran’s Administration facilities in the US. And by reducing the load on the VA, its quality standards of care will also improve, specifically for chronic and less serious care.
Uh, are we talking about the same Mexico that's essentially destroying the entire Medical Care System, such as it is, that we currently have with illegal immigration?
That Mexico?
I'm Stuned.
And thus it has been for decades. With this tarnished example, why would anyone in their right mind think the gubermint can build upon this “success” and ramp it up for all Americans. /rhetorical
I work for the VA, and I have seen this time and time again.
This man has had 40 years to get a service connection, why did he wait until he is 88?
He had Jungle Rot and was exposed to Agent Orange, I know for a fact the VA has addressed both of those in the last several years.
If he is drawing a Military retirement and then gets Service Connection he doesn’t draw 2 checks, he still draws the same amount, except that his disability is more tax exempt. They convert some of Pension into Disability.
If he is living in a Vet Center then most of his Disability money then goes to the Vet Center.
I have seen families do this before, living off of the Vet’s money, “Let’s keep him alive so we keep getting the money”.
Now there are a lot of Vet’s that are very grateful for the VA, and then there are a lot more that just want to munch off of the Government.
I am sorry but I have seen it from both sides.
USA Today article:
So what I am saying is that the already borderline nursing and retirement home system in the US keeps getting more expensive, with lower standards of care. A combination of less expensive and better care are powerful market forces.
Having seen one of the “best” nursing care facilities in my State, and the quality of life of those who live there, if I faced such a possible existence, I don’t think Mexico would be far enough away for me to head South. I would find some poor small town, buy the friendship of everybody who lived there, then ask them to tell anybody looking for me that I passed by, but kept going. Dying there, of natural causes, would be far better than living in a box as a zombie for several more years.
I work for the VA, and I have seen this time and time again.
Oh, goody. On the faint possibility that you do work for the Department of Veterans Affairs, I'll go ahead and reply to your somewhat defensive post.
This man has had 40 years to get a service connection, why did he wait until he is 88? He had Jungle Rot and was exposed to Agent Orange, I know for a fact the VA has addressed both of those in the last several years.
I can't speak for this veteran, but I can speak for myself.
First, I had NO IDEA that my Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia could have been caused by my service in Vietnam. None. And just who was going to tell me? If it were not for my wife insisting that I put in a claim for an injury to my arm while I served in the Navy off Vietnam, and the kindness of two Infantry guys and a Marine I spoke to while waiting for my C&P exam I would never have even known that CLL could be caused by exposure to Agent Orange.
Second, and the reason I said 'faint possibility' above, is that the Agent Orange Act was not even passed until 1991, so he could not even apply before then. So that cuts your 40 years down to 11. What makes you think that this man, before his dementia, WANTED to get involved with filing a claim with the VA, anymore than I did? We both knew what a completely delightful experience that was going to be.
But don't pay attention to me, why don't you listen to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals recently, and see what they had to say:
Court: VA Must Pay Agent Orange Victims
Friday July 20, 2007 4:01 AM Note the date!
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - An appeals court chastised the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday and ordered the agency to pay retroactive benefits to Vietnam War veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange and contracted a form of leukemia.
“The performance of the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has contributed substantially to our sense of national shame,” the opinion from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals read.
<snip>
The VA agreed in 2003 to extend benefits to Vietnam vets diagnosed with chronic lymphocytic leukemia, known as CLL. U.S. troops had sprayed 20 million gallons of Agent Orange and other herbicides over parts of South Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1960s and '70s to clear dense jungle, and researchers later linked CLL to Agent Orange.
But the VA did not re-examine previous claims from veterans suffering from the ailment, nor did it pay them retroactive benefits, which was at the heart of the latest dispute.
<snip>
“We would hope that this litigation will now end, that our government will now respect the legal obligations it undertook in the consent decree some 16 years ago, that obstructionist bureaucratic opposition will now cease, and that our veterans will finally receive the benefits to which they are morally and legally entitled,” Judge Stephen Reinhardt wrote in the court's opinion.
And that is only ONE of the recent Court cases the Department of Veterans Affairs has LOST. And they'll keep losing, too, because they are WRONG.
The bottom line here is that over the years since 'War Two', between the General Council, the Rating Board members, the Secretary and Deputy and Assistant Secretaries, the DVA has generated so many little rules and hoops for a veteran to jump through that it is a miracle if he survives long enough to collect. (Some of us are of the opinion that this is not an accident, you know!) Each and every career bureaucrat who could originated some little regulation, ostensibly to 'ensure' that only 'legitimate' claims are paid, until after all this time the DVA comes up with Manual 21-1, and that penultimate example of regulation run amuck, the egregious "Boots on the Ground" rule.
The kind of people epitomized by General Council Mary Lou Keener, Acting-Secretary Gobel, Secretary Principi and finally Secretary Nicholson—well, if you work there, you know. If you don't, — Never mind.
Wanna take a swing at that?
C'mon...
As far as ‘legitimate claims’ I have seen so much abuse of this it just makes sick to see all the false claims we are paying for.
Let me give you just 2 examples.
1.A young man that used to work in the same area as me, hurt his knees playing football in High School. He joined the Army as a Tanker, after 2 years he got kicked out for his poor attitude. He filed for a service connection on his knees claiming that climbing in and out of the Tank damaged his knees. He didn’t tell the VA that football is what tore up his knees. He is drawing 30% on his knees. He then files a claim for athletes foot!!! And draws another 10% for that. This isn’t a service connected injury, this is pure deceit.
2.Another man I used to work with spent 20 years in the Army, and then spent another 20 years with the VA. Two years before he retired, he was diagnosed with diabetes. He hadn’t used the VA for his Medical care for years. But since he was in Vietnam and the VA was paying claims for Agent Orange, diabetes was one of those claims. Now the rest of the story, the man was ½ black and ½ Indian, he smoked, drank, didn’t exercise, was overweight, both his parents had diabetes, his brother died because he wouldn’t watch his diabetes, 80% of his family had diabetes. But because he was in ‘Nam it was the Governments fault. He had ALL the classic risk factors for diabetes, his chances for developing diabetes was close 70%. He didn’t tell the VA to story.
I have seen this game played dozens of times, the VA processes thousands of claims a year just like this. For every legitimate claim you will have 4 or 5 bogus claims. The problem is sorting out the good ones from the bad ones.
Just remember next time you have to stand in line at the VA at how many of those others patients are drawing money for bogus claims and using services and resources that should be going to those that are truly service connected.
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