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Editorial: Time for action

These are the facts:

•The Veterans Affairs Department has a huge backlog of almost 400,000 benefits claims from injured or disabled veterans.

•It takes an average of six months for the VA to make a decision on an initial benefits claim, and two years to rule on appeals of those initial decisions.

•The VA backlog is growing, as 100 to 300 service members are wounded each week in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yet even as the wars have overwhelmed the VA, its only move to date has been to declare it will hire a small number of extra claims adjudicators. It’s a timid response, likely to have negligible impact.

A bolder solution proposed by Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., senior Republican on the House Veterans’ Affairs disability assistance panel, would have the VA automatically approve some claims — those clear-cut cases that don’t require extensive documentation. This way, manpower could be saved to focus on more complex claims.

Clearly, an automatic claims process creates an opportunity for increased fraud and abuse. But spot audits and periodic broader reviews could be used to ensure the integrity of a system in which 88 percent of claims are approved anyway.

VA Secretary Jim Nicholson, who has announced his intention to resign by Oct. 1, voiced support for the concept July 25.

With the VA secretary on the record in support of action — and generally in favor of this concept — the time is ripe for action. We do not need another report to boldly acknowledge the problem.

Congress must approve and the VA must implement Lamborn’s plan — or something like it — without delay.

It’s bad enough that collective inaction has brought the benefits claims system to a point of crisis. To keep doing nothing while knowing full well that the situation will only worsen would be unforgivable.