ANALYSIS: Has the Obama Administration Been Good or Bad for Veterans?

President Obama speaking to Disabled American Veterans

During his speech Saturday before the Disabled American Veterans' national convention in Orlando, Fla, President Obama addressed new proposals to give veterans greater access to education and job opportunities, and said the backlog of veteran disability claims, which has plagued the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for years, has "begun to shrink." But is this in fact true? And what is the real story regarding Obama's record on America's veterans? Has he been good or bad for our former warriors? 

It's not a simple answer. There have been some historic advances, as well as some profound failures. While the backlog has been reduced by nearly 20 percent since March, Obama ignored some key numbers in his speech. The number of disability claims and delays actually skyrocketed in the last three years, partly because so many troops have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, and because of an aging population of Vietnam War vets and overdue rule changes that made more veterans eligible. 

Approximately 780,000 claims are now pending for new and re-opened claims, and there are 250,000 additional claims on appeal. In other words, more than 1 million of our disabled veterans are still not getting the compensation they have earned serving our country.

Obama has clearly worked hard trying to fix this broken disability claims process and to assist veterans in other areas. But has he done enough? No. Is he minimizing the ongoing problems at VA? Yes, especially for Gulf War veterans, who this administration has virtually forsaken. Just weeks ago, VA Secretary Eric Shinseki, who of course is an Obama appointee, gutted the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Illness, an independent board mandated by Congress in 1998. 

Shinseki, who'd previously shown unwavering support for the committee, reversed course for no legitimate reason, firing or removing the committee's chair and half the panel. This shocked and angered many veteran advocates who speak out for the 250,000 Gulf War veterans who've still not yet been treated for Gulf War Illness.

Despite these very serious problems, things have gotten better for veterans overall since Obama took office. It's not easy fixing such a deeply entrenched bureaucracy as VA, especially when two wars are concluding and politicians are too busy fighting each other to pass many laws. But by almost any measure, the situation for veterans and their families is demonstrably better now than it was under the previous administration. 

There has been real progress on many fronts, including conditions at VA facilities, and the fast-tracking of coverage of a number of health issues resulting from Vietnam War troop exposure to Agent Orange, which the Bush administration ignored. 

And this administration is light years ahead of the previous one in terms of support for veterans with post-traumatic stress (PTSD) and other mental health-related issues, which Bush largely neglected. And then of course there were the conditions we saw at Walter Reed, which I reported for Newsweek in 2007. 

It is disingenuous and transparently political for Bush-era pols to lambast Obama for his treatment of veterans. The VA during the Bush years was a disaster, as we reported six years ago.

Anthony Principi, for example, who was one of the three VA secretaries under President Bush, recently said the backlog is largely the result of Obama administration policy decisions and laws that have burdened the system. In a speech at a forum co-hosted by Concerned Veterans for America and The Weekly Standard magazine, Principi called for the restoration of the "integrity" of the VA claims system.

This is nonsense. Principi's VA was mired in controversy. And he has no room to speak on the subject of integrity. The Los Angeles Times reported in 2008 that the California company headed by Principi overcharged VA by some $6 million under a long-term contract to conduct physical evaluations on veterans applying for disability benefits. 

Obama also deserves credit for implementing the overdue automation of troops claims, which will revolutionize the claims process. My sources inside VA tell me that this badly needed computerization of the claims process has faced resistance by 19th century VA bureaucrats. 

One source who works with VA every day tells me, "There is sadly but clearly a population of career non-professional VA employees who are worried that the transition to computerized claims and the elimination of paper will mean fewer jobs. They may be right, but if that's the price to pay for timely and accurate claims processing, then too bad. Shinseki has stated publicly that the antiquated paper claims system costs the taxpayers $1 billion a year, and that does not quantify the pain and suffering of those waiting for adjudication of their claims. Many of the suicides are due to slow processing or denials." 

Robert Walsh, an attorney who has represented thousands of veterans with disability claims with VA, says that "more veterans that I represent obtained 100 percent VA compensation benefits and health care in the first four years of the Obama administration than in eight years of the Bush administration. That is all I know about it. Results. Shinseki and Obama have been 100 percent better for vets and the country vis a vis military families and vets. Shinseki took over a train wreck. He has the trains running again."

But the track is certainly not at 100 percent speed. Paul Sullivan, a highly respected veterans advocate and managing director of public affairs at Bergmann & Moore, a law firm that exclusively handles veteran disability cases, recently told MSNBC that at some VA offices, the wait for a disability claim to be processed is "unbelievably long. We’ve had clients here that have died waiting ten-plus years for a VA decision."

So, clearly, while things have improved under Obama's watch, much more needs to be done. While he gets an F for his treatment of Gulf War veterans, overall I'd give him a C-. Or, perhaps more accurately, an incomplete.