Agent Orange Retro Claims Allowed < New Today..

[JJ_BPK]

Not that I wish anyone this problem,, but AO claimants are getting something
they long deserve..

Jim

Agent Orange Retro Claims Allowed

About 86,000 Vietnam War veterans, their surviving spouses or estates will
be eligible for retroactive disability compensation from the Department of
Veterans Affairs -- an average of 11.4 years for veterans and 9.6 years for
survivors -- under a draft VA rule to expand by three the number of diseases
presumed caused by herbicide exposure in the war.

The 86,000 are beneficiaries who can reopen previously denied claims for
these conditions: ischemic heart disease, Parkinson's disease and chronic
B-cell blood cancers including hairy cell leukemia. But another 29,000
claims are expected to be approved this year for Vietnam veterans suffering
from these diseases but applying for benefits for the first time.

The projected cost of this dramatic expansion of claims linked to Agent
Orange and other defoliants deployed four decades ago is $13.6 billion this
fiscal year and $42.2 billion over 10 years. VA plans to hire 1772 new
claims processors, starting this October, to be able to handle these claims
"without significantly degrading the processing of the non-presumptive
workload."

In the proposed rule published March 25 in the Federal Register, VA
officials explained that Secretary Eric Shinseki has cut the usual 60-day
public comment period by half "to promote rapid action" on these claims.

When a final rule is published, soon after April 26, VA claim offices across
the country can begin making payments. Veterans with these diseases will
need to show they set foot in Vietnam during the war. Those who served
aboard ship just off the coast remain ineligible.

John Maki, assistant national service director for Disabled American
Veterans, said DAV was glad to see the comment period cut to 30 days.
Otherwise, the draft regulation contains no surprises. "It basically is
going to take those three conditions and just add them to disabilities
already listed as presumptive diseases for Agent Orange," Maki said.

One surprise still might be the thoroughness of the draft rule's analysis of
the beneficiary populations and the costs facing the department from this
wave of claims for both retroactive payments and new benefits.

Adding ischemic heart disease to the list of presumptive Agent Orange
illnesses is by far the most significant part of the new rule, accounting
for 82 percent of additional expected payments to beneficiaries.

The rule defines ischemic health disease as a condition causing inadequate
supply of blood and oxygen to the myocardium, the middle and thickest layer
of the heart wall. "IHD" can include, but is not limited to, acute, subacute
and old myocardial infarction; atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease
including coronary artery disease (or spasm) and coronary bypass surgery,
and stable, unstable and Prinzmetal's angina.

Because IHD is a heart disease it "does not include hypertension or
peripheral manifestations of arteriosclerosis such as peripheral vascular
disease or stroke," the draft regulation explains.

Of 86,000 beneficiaries eligible for retroactive claims, VA estimates that
nearly 70,000 of them are living Vietnam veterans, their average age now 63.
Of those, 62,200 previously were denied compensation for IHD, 5400 were
denied for B-cell leukemia and 2300 for Parkinson's disease.

About 53,000 who previously filed claims for these diseases already are
receiving VA compensation for other service-related diseases. Of those,
roughly 8350 are rated 100-percent disabled and therefore might not be
eligible for retroactive pay.

VA assumes that veterans with Parkinson's disease or for B-cell leukemia
will be awarded a 100-percent disability ratings. The average rating for
ischemic heart diseases is expected to be 60 percent.

In calculating VA costs from this change, VA assumes that 80 percent of the
eligible population will apply for benefits and 100 percent of those who do
will be approved. But eligible vets and suvivors must file claims to get
paid; nothing will happen automatically. To file claims online visit:
http://vabenefits.vba.va.gov/vonapp/main.asp. Veterans without a computer
can call a toll-free helpline at 1-800-749-8387.

VA maintains a directory of veterans' service organizations with trained
staff to help in filing claims. The website: http://www1.va.gov/vso/. Many
state, county and local governments also have personnel to help. Find
information on these agencies at: http://www.va.gov/statedva.htm.

VA also expects many inelgible veterans to file claims. They will be found
ineligible because they can't show they ever set foot in Vietnam though they
suffer from one of the qualifying diseases. Many claims will be filed by
veterans with hyptertension but those will be rejected because that
condition is not a "heart disease" under the VA draft regulation.
In total, VA expects claims volume from presumptive Agent Orange diseases to
hit 159,000 this year and to exceed 270,000 by fiscal 2019.

Maki noted that entitlement to benefits only occurs with final publication
of the regulation. Retroactive payments usually will be made back to the
date a claim was filed for a presumptive disease.

"It is possible, since this is a librealized law, that somebody may be able
to get the retroactive date [moved back] to one year prior to the effective
date in the regulation, if they can show they had the claimed condition
prior to that year," Maki said.

The growing list of Agent Orange diseases stems of a court case, Nehmer v.
Department of Veterans Affairs, filed in 1986 The class action lawsuit won
by veterans, and reinforced by legislation, requires VA to direct the
National Academy of Sciences to report every two years on any positive
association between new diseases and exposure to herbicides in Vietnam.

In 2007, the Bush administration went to court to challenge the legal need
for NAS studies on presumptive AO diseases to continue. It lost. The NAS
reports are to continue through Oct. 1, 2014, with the possility that more
diseases will be found to have an assocition with herbicide exposure.

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