Sixty-Seven Senators Urge Obama To Resolve VA Claims Backlog

More than two-thirds of the U.S. Senate sent a letter to President Obama Monday urging his “direct and public involvement” to end the Veterans Affairs Department’s disability claims backlog.

The letter, co-authored by Sens. Bob Casey, D-Pa., and Dean Heller, R-Nev., and signed by a bipartisan group of another 65 Senators, said, “In the past four years, the number of claims pending for over year has grown by over 2,000 percent despite a 40 percent increase in the VA budget.” The letter pointed out that “during this same time period, Congress has given the VA everything it has asked for in terms of more funding and more employees; however this has not eliminated the backlog of claims.”

Also on Monday, VA reported it had 882,023 backlogged claims with 610,150 or 69.2 percent backlogged more than 125 days. VA had 719,713 claims pending as of April 27, 2009, with 147,293 pending more than 180 days.