VA Reneges On Promise
As reported by Benjamin Krause, founder of DisabledVeterans.org, VA Secretary David Shulkin, MD, is enacting Individual Unemployability cuts for veterans who are severely disabled and unable to hold traditional employment after previously promising he would not do it.
Despite many promises, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and now Secretary Shulkin, will cut Individual Unemployability benefits after scheming behind the scenes for four years to reduce benefits for severely disabled veterans at the direction of the Obama Administration. According to VA in the Friday Federal Register publication:
VA had already proposed to clarify section 3.321(b)(1) as part of a regulation rewrite project in 2013; however, a subsequent decision by the Federal Circuit held that section 3.321(b)(1) required VA to consider the combined effects of two or more service-connected disabilities when determining extra-schedular evaluations. Johnson v. McDonald, 762 F.3d 1362, 1365-66 (Fed. Cir. 2014), rev'g 26 Vet. App. 237 (2013). This decision conflicts with VA's longstanding interpretation of section 3.321(b)(1), and VA therefore decided to amend the regulation in a separate rulemaking to clarify its interpretation of the regulation.
Now, under the Trump Administration, the cuts as implemented will make it much more difficult to qualify for Individual Unemployability benefits for severely disabled veterans.
The severely disabled veterans who need to be nervous are those seeking Individual Unemployability benefits without at least one 60% rating. Those with pending claims without a 60% rating hung up in the appeals process will lose out. To this point, veterans with a combined rating of 70% or more could receive extra-schedular consideration for Individual Unemployability ratings.
VA will screw severely disabled veterans of backpay and monthly compensation payments worth hundreds of millions if not billions in money. Many of these veterans will be forced to seeking help from already stretched local or state resources, instead.
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