Barack Obama

Illinois vets can reapply for benefits

Tuesday, May 9, 2006

By Josh Noel - Chicago Tribune

Wayne Macejak, a gray-haired Vietnam-era veteran, said he has seen it time and again: fellow Illinois veterans fighting for their benefits.

"With the VA, everything seems to be about money," said Macejak, chairman of the American Legion's rehabilitation committee in Illinois. "They just sit back and wait for the veterans to come to them."

Flanked by Macejak and other veterans Monday in downtown Chicago, U.S. Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is sending letters to 326,000 veterans in six states, including 62,000 in Illinois, where VA benefits have been the lowest.

The letter tells veterans about benefit disparities and how to reapply if they believe they were shortchanged or if their conditions have worsened.

A report by the VA office of inspector general showed that in 2004, the most recent figures available, Illinois veterans received the lowest average disability payments in the nation, $6,961. In New Mexico, the state with the highest average benefit, veterans received an average of $12,004.

At the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Plaza on Wacker Drive, the senators said there's no one reason why Illinois veterans receive so little compared with veterans in other states. But they said the disparity is caused in part by a lack of training for VA workers and not enough outreach.

"For far too long, where a veteran lives determined how much compensation they received," said Obama, who sits on the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs. "That's unfair, and it's wrong."

The VA was required to send the letter as a result of an amendment offered by Durbin and Obama to the military construction and veterans affairs appropriations bill.

Acknowledging that the VA would not have sent the letters on its own, spokesman Terry Jemison said in a written statement, "This provision of law requires us to selectively conduct additional outreach to veterans based on where they live."

Durbin said he heard concerns that too many new claims would overburden the agency.

"The Veterans Administration said, `You know what's going to happen when you send out 300,000 letters? We're going to be swamped by veterans,'" Durbin said. "Well so be it. It's better that there'll be a hardship on the VA than more hardship on Illinois veterans."

Veterans in Indiana, Michigan, Connecticut, Ohio and New Jersey also will receive the letter.