From the Washington Post:
Kinsley Kilpatrick put on a convincing show.
During visits to Atlanta VA Medical Center, the Iraq War veteran arrived in a wheelchair, claiming multiple sclerosis had paralyzed his arms and legs. By the time he turned 35, the onetime athlete said he could barely move from the neck down, leaving him dependent on others to eat, dress and bathe, according to court records.
Obligated to help a former soldier in need, the Department of Veterans Affairs began paying Kilpatrick $7,900 a month in tax-free disability benefits in 2015, the records show. The federal government also gave him $20,000 for a specially equipped Jeep Cherokee to make it easier for his wife to take him to medical appointments.
iClick these iconsto see documents and more detailed information.
The hoax lasted for three years and might have continued indefinitely, if not for a whistleblower who sent VA proof that Kilpatrick was lying: videos of the Army veteran backflipping on a trampoline, prancing around a sports field like a ballerina and swan diving into a playground ball pit. ...
Why would I be posting this story about VA on the Social Security News blog? This sort of story gets planted when you want to cut a program. You could easily get the Post to do a similar article about Social Security disability and use it to justify making it harder to get on disability benefits and to stay on them. In fact, I imagine that's coming.
I can't say how common fraud is at VA but I'm sure that a few vets caught faking it doesn't mean that the program has lax standards. There must be well over a million vets drawing VA benefits. It's inevitable that there will be at least a few crooks among them. Coming up with a few cases like this one prove nothing about the overall program but can sway many members of the public and members of Congress.
Considering that people voted the a$$clowns to lead the country, I wouldn’t put anything past them. There are people that are extreme, stupid and extremely stupid out there, sad times.
ReplyDeleteI acknowledge your premise, Charles, but there does appear to be an increase of potential clients receiving 100% permanent and total VA disability that I turn down for SSD representation. I wouldn't call it fraud, but the qualifications seem to have been relaxed. I speak with more vets now in their 30's and 40's with a combo of health issues getting 100% P&T that would likely not lead to a finding of less than sedentary work and a finding of disability in an SSD case.
ReplyDeleteI would agree with this assessment.
DeleteI do not have a problem with the VA having lax standards of disability.
ReplyDeleteI do, however, have a problem with 100% P&T claimants getting critical case status with SSA and moving to the front of the line when the medical evidence quite often shows few to no abnormalities.
I read the entire lengthy article and found it instructive in the issue of, yes, lax administrative standards.
ReplyDelete“The basis for the whole program really is based upon the forthrightness of the veteran and his or her telling us the truth about something, because we assume that they’re telling us the truth,” said Dean Holtzman, the deputy chief of the Veterans Service Center in Louisville.
“It’s a very pro-claimant system. Nobody likes taking money away,” Holtzman said. “We’re not Big Brother. We don’t look over people’s shoulders.”
"The Veterans Benefits Administration, the arm of VA that oversees disability payments, has a dedicated fraud team. But according to agency documents, the fraud unit is relatively small and spends most of its time investigating external scams targeting veterans, not ones committed by them."
The many cases cited were egregious and yes should not damn the entire program but reflect poor oversight no matter how you parse it. Provides opponents of assistance all the ammunition they need to attack current systems.
My spouse is a VA disability rater. She acknowledges that the program has lax standards, and that too many veterans game the system, if not outright commit fraud. And she’s furious with WaPo over this article. It wasn’t a serious inquiry that identified areas that need revision and improvement. This is a hit job. The examples used and data presented was cherry picked to make the program look bad, with no necessary context. Two of the conditions talked about in length give most veterans a 0% rating, meaning they don’t give the veteran any additional money. Instead they are identified for medical reasons, and in case there are any developing secondary effects. But the article implied that the VA was giving veterans billions for made up conditions. Charles is right. This was political propaganda to justify future spending cuts. And another reason why WaPo is now unreadable.
Delete$7,900 a month in tax free disability payments? How is that possible he’s making gs14 pay
ReplyDeleteThe article says that Kilpatrick was receiving $7,900 is benefits in 2015. According to the VA, someone with a 100% SC Disability with a spouse, two parents who qualify a dependents and a child would in 2025 would be $4,544.23 plus an extra $106.14 for each other dependent child. Unless I'm missing something, perhaps a separate military pension or even SS benefits, the number don't add up.
ReplyDeleteAm I missing something or is this just sloppy reporting?
Been doing both SSDI and VA work for many years. $7,900/month could be combo of 100% rating + dependent pay + wife approved as home caregiver (can be up to app. $3,000/month). Agree story may be set up as hit piece for VA benefit cuts. Truth is always 2-5% of any population group are rotten and possibly cheating a system (VA, insurance, stealing from church till on Sunday). Doesn't mean we have to shutdown everything. 95-98% of people are still fairly honest.
DeleteThere are additional pay a veteran can get if they lose the ability of arms and/or legs, it's called Special Monthly Compensation, which could add many thousands more.
DeleteEVERY SINGLE VA case I see has the claimant getting paid for PTSD. Every one of them. Cuz, you know, they say they have PTSD, even though the substantiating background to prove the PTSD never seems to make it into the file. Then we pay them for PTSD on top of the VA paying them for PTSD.
ReplyDeleteThe gnashing of teeth (and dare I say gatekeeping) over PTSD is so overblown. If the medical evidence does not show a disabling mental impairment, the claimant isn't going to be approved for Social Security benefits for a disabling mental impairment. There is not a single shred of agency guidance that suggests that we give any deference at all to PTSD diagnoses. PTSD cases don't get their own sequential evaluation or special rules. Just follow the dang evidence.
DeleteThe VA does not require actual mental health treatment for impairments (like PTSd) for which they assign high disability ratings percentages. 70% rating for PTSD because the veteran claims symptoms, but there’s no actual evidence of symptoms, no active medications, no participation in counseling or therapy, and no treatment notes from a psychiatrist? They’re either laughed out of a SSA disability hearing, or rubber stamped approval because of their service, depending on the judge. And there’s no in between.
DeleteVA bases ratings almost entirely on the C&P exam opinion. C&Ps are VA's version of SSA"s CEs. Would be like SSA never reading the medical evidence and basing its decision to approve or deny entirely on a 15-minute CE exam. It's why you get wild results (some people who deserve a high rating get screwed, some people who deserve a low rating hit payday, some people get what is right).
DeleteI'm surprised DOGE didn't hire people to follow disabled people around to catch them in lies about their conditions. Considering the administration, however, I'm glad they didn't. A simple walk to the store for a person with a mental disability would certainly result in being cut off. 🙄 I wouldn't put it past DOGE to do anything to prove fraud/abuse.
ReplyDeleteDOGE didn't have to hire people to do this because there are already Cooperative Disability Investigation Units that do this.
Delete“… doesn't mean that the program has lax standards.”
ReplyDeleteTell me you’re not familiar with VA standards without telling me you’re not familiar with VA standards. It’s certainly not fraud most of the time, but the way the VA cleared their backlog 10-15 years ago wasn’t applying strict standards. Their program is incredibly deferential to subjective allegations of vets even in the absence of supporting evidence. It’s written in the statute.
The VA has even fired doctors who weren’t sufficiently accepting of veteran symptom claims for their disability ratings examinations. I wish I was kidding. I think the term they used was “insufficiently veteran centric”
DeleteWhile DOGE or similar organizations would like to investigate Social Security disability recipients, they would never be allowed to look into VA benefits recipients - - even though the incidence of "fraud" or whatever you want to call it is probably higher in the latter. It's just not politically viable to do so.
ReplyDelete