One Person Makes a Difference

Statement

One Person Makes a Difference

In March 2001, I responded to a letter from an ophthalmologist with the Veterans Affairs Hospital (VA) in Madison. A Korean War veteran himself, Dr. James Allen had treated veterans at the VA for more than thirty years. In his letter to me, Dr. Allen explained that he regularly saw veterans who had lost all or significant vision in one eye as a result of their service to their country (or in VA parlance, a service-connected condition). Then, later in life, they had an injury or illness causing loss of vision in the one good eye, which left the veteran without functional vision. Dr. Allen heard from his patients that the law only allowed for special consideration for compensation if the vision loss was total in the service-connected eye, and total in the second eye. He believed this was unfair, reasoning that, had it not been for the first injury while in service, the individual would still have sight in one eye after the subsequent injury.

From that one letter began the long, sometimes frustrating, ultimately exhilarating process of turning one person's quest for fairness into law. I proposed a small, but practical, change that allows veterans who have a complete loss of sight in one eye due to a service-connected injury to receive increased disability compensation if they begin to lose sight in the other eye, regardless of whether that loss of sight is service-connected. It seemed like a no-brainer. A 2002 federal law corrected a similar deficiency for those who suffered service-related hearing loss and similar benefits already existed for other "paired" organs.

Along the way, I garnered strong bi-partisan support for the bill including from the Chair of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, the Ranking Republican Member of the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee, the Chair of the Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs Subcommittee, the Ranking Republican Member of the Health Subcommittee, and the Chair of the Economic Opportunity Subcommittee. Democrats and Republicans, alike, saw the need for this legislative "fix." Unfortunately, in the last session of Congress, the Republican leadership which controlled which bills would get to the floor, declined to give this measure a vote.

Meanwhile, the Blinded Veterans Association identified more than 200 soldiers returning from Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and Operation Iraqi Freedom who are blinded in one eye due to service-related injuries and could benefit from this legislation. This change in law would send a powerful signal to our nation's blinded veterans that we recognize the hardships they face and that they are not forgotten.

This legislation is important, but it solves only one piece of a much larger problem.

Since 2001, the Army's physical disability caseload has increased 80 percent and the case backlog on new VA benefit claims in FY 2006 was up to 400,000. The average length of time veterans wait before receiving monthly benefits varies from six months to 2 years.

In the coming years, 700,000 new veterans are expected to enter the military and veterans health care systems. Although 35 percent of Iraq War veterans are seeking psychological counseling within a year of returning home and, since 2002, more than 70,000 veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have been diagnosed by the VA with a potential mental disorder, virtually none of the country's local VA clinics provided any mental health care as recently as 2005.

And, it's not for lack of funds. According to the Government Accounting Office, the Department of Veterans Affairs did not spend all of the extra $300 million it budgeted to increase mental health services and failed to keep track of how some of the money was used.

While American service members and their families are making enormous physical, emotional, psychological, and financial sacrifices, the recent revelations of shameful conditions and treatment at Walter Reed Army Hospital are deplorable. As the VA faces ever-increasing numbers of seriously injured and disabled veterans, we must reaffirm our commitment to a VA health care system that meets all their needs. The American public demands better treatment for our military personnel and veterans and Congress is acting to ensure that this situation is addressed swiftly.

It's easy to assume that life is unfair, government is unresponsive, bureaucracies are intractable, and there's nothing any one of us can do about it. But one VA doctor, Dr. Allen, believed otherwise; and so do I.

Six years almost to the day that I first responded to his letter, the Dr. James C. Allen Veteran Vision Equity Act (H.R. 797) was passed in the House of Representatives. In a few weeks, barring any unforeseen problems, Dr. Allen will see our bill signed into law by the President.

Change doesn't always come as quickly as we might like. But change will never come without the participation of committed citizens. In a democracy, the power lies with the people, not the pundits; and each individual has the power to make a difference.

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