Maloney: No one should fight for their country only to return home and have to fight their government

WASHINGTON, DC – Representative Sean Patrick Maloney (NY-18) spoke on the House Floor urging his colleagues to support the Disabled Veterans Red Tape Reduction Act, HR 1521, to help address the Veterans Administration (VA)’s backlog of disability claims. Below are Rep. Maloney’s remarks:   

“No one should fight for their country only to return home and have to fight their government. But that’s exactly what’s happening with over a million disabled veterans today who are waiting far too long to have their claims processed by the VA. There are right now thousands of folks in my home state of New York and in the Hudson Valley who are waiting on average over 400 days to have their claims processed. That’s a year in a half. That’s wrong and we can do better by our veterans.    

“I’ve met one veteran recently named Edward Kackos.  Ed served his country in Vietnam. He came home.  He filed a disability claim in February 2011. But that was 800 days ago and Ed’s still waiting for an answer. He said to me recently: ‘Sean – I just need an answer so I can decide whether I’m going have to sale my house because I don’t want to have it foreclosed.’    

“Think about how disgraceful that is.  We need to give him an answer sooner.  

“And there is a solution. I recently introduced the Disabled Veterans Red Tape Reduction Act. This is a simple idea that would allow veterans to go to doctors outside the VA system to get their claims processed and it would speed it up.  

“But this program  is at risk right now – a program that 20% of all veterans use because the last Congress failed to reauthorize it. I urge my colleagues to support this measure for another 5 years.”