Die or Give Up Trying

More than 28-thousand veterans may have been cheated out of their pay.

This is from the Oversight and Government Reform Committee chaired by Dennis Kucinich D-Ohio.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
to
Die or Give Up Trying": How Poor Contractor Performance, Government
Mismanagement and the Erosion of Quality Controls Denied Thousands of Disabled
Veterans Timely and Accurate Retroactive Retired Pay Awards.
Retroactive pay awards to eligible retired veterans with disabilities were enacted by
Congress in2003 and2004. But delays in delivering the new benef,rt were signif,rcant.
The Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) determined that more than
133,000 potentially eligible veterans were waiting for adjudication of their claims three
years after Congress enacted the laws. The backlog grew to over 2I7,000 veterans as the
delays compounded.
DFAS awarded a no-bid, Cost Plus Fixed Fee contract to Lockheed Martin ("Lockheed")
for the VA Retro program, as the work to compute the retroactive pay awards was
known. Lockheed originally had a deadline of November 2007 to work through the
backlog of VA Retro cases. But Lockheed missed that deadline and every succeeding
one. By March 1, 2008, over 60,000 eligible veterans still had not had their cases
reviewed for payment. SEE FULL STORY HERE:
http://domesticpolicy.oversight.house.gov/documents/20080715083250.pdf