news VA under fire for survivors' benefits management: 'A failure of the grandest proportion'

[Veterans News]

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers want the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve how it manages its survivors' benefits programs.

The VA estimates that the number of living vets will drop from today's 18.3 million to 12.1 million by 2048. It's a decrease of about 34%.

It will fall to the VA to ensure that each of those veteran's survivors get all the benefits to which they're entitled.

"Historically, there has been a lack of resources dedicated to the mission of serving survivors. As an example, only two employees in the Office of Survivor Assistance to serve over 400,000 survivors," said Rep. Mark Takano (D-California).

A new bill called the "Survivor Benefits Delivery Improvement Act" could help. The measure would require the VA to do a better job of data collection on the survivor population, and it would close the knowledge gap among survivors about what benefits they might be entitled to.

Read more at: https://www.13newsnow.com/article/n...tion/291-5cb19a47-fbe2-4b57-ae8b-8180599c5b58

 

[troppy]

I really hope that the Veterans Affairs doesn't let my wife down after I'm gone...

Do they really only have two workers handling 400,000 active cases? I really hope they have more staff to handle survivors' benefits processing.