HEARINGS TO RECEIVE TESTIMONY ON COMPENSATION TUESDAY, MARCH 21, 1978 U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, PENSION, AND INSURANCE, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 8:30 a.m., in room 334, Cannon House Office Building, Hon. G. V. Montgomery (chairman) presiding. Mr. MONTGOMERY. The subcommittee will be in order. Today we begin two days of hearings on various bills pending before this subcommittee for the service-connected disabled veteran and on DIC for survivors of veterans who have died as a result of serviceconnected disabilities. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of the subcommittee for their hard work and attendance during the hearings and markup on legislation to improve the pension program. I have been talking to staff this morning. We want to keep the pension reform bill moving, and as I understand it, under the new budget process, we might not be able to bring the bill up until after May 15 when the first budget resolution is adopted, and we hope that we can bring the bill up under suspension. But we are proud of the job that we have done on this legislation. Our primary responsibility is in behalf of the service-connected disabled veteran and his dependents. I would like to stress that really, in my opinion, our first obligation is to the service-connected person, the person that was hurt during the wars that our country has been involved in. To best illustrate that, I point out what Oliver Meadows, who was the staff director for this committee for more than 20 years and who is now commander of the Disabled American Veterans, recently said, and I quote: "Our Nation's first responsibility is historically to those veterans who were disabled in wartime service, and that other considerations in the world of veterans' affairs are secondary. America has always had a primary moral obligation to the men and women who were disabled during wartime service in her armed forces." Today we will move into legislation pertaining to the serviceconnected veteran and their dependents, and we will hear from the different veterans' organizations. We had one member who was going to (1) testify this morning; he has requested that he come in the first thing in the morning. The primary bill that we will address today is H.R. 10337, which is designed to provide a 6.5 percent cost-of-living increase in disability compensaton for veterans with service-incurred disabilites and to widows and children of veterans who have died from service-incurred disabilities. The effective date of this bill will be October 1, 1978. In other words, this cost-of-living increase legislation for the service connected. The President's budget proposal was a 5.8-percent increase, and we consider a more realistic figure to be 6.5 percent. As you recall, the compensation rates that we passed last year went into effect October 1, 1977. As I said, we passed a bill in the House in 1977 that was a 6-percent increase, and by the time the Senate acted, it was clear that this should be raised to a higher percentage, and the Senate came back with 6.6 and we settled on a 6.6-percent increase. Today, even though the Veterans' Administration has recommended 5.8, our bill does call for 6.5. Now this bill would add to the veterans' compensation program $350 million in fiscal 1979, and this is about $66 million over the President's recommendation. These necessary funds are included in the budget recommendation the full committee has sent to the Committee on the Budget. In other words, we included the $350 million. We have other bills; one is 10336, a bill which would decrease the minimum disability rating at which a service-connected veteran would be provided additional compensation for dependents. This is $282 millon. Then we have H.R. 10338, a bill which would provide for a two-tier aid and attendance payment system for certain severly disabled veterans. This is about an $11 million cost. H.R. 10352 is a bill to clarify the intent of Congress in providing for exemption from taxation of compensation paid in lieu of military retired pay, about $1.5 million cost. H.R. 9994, a bill which would provide under some circumstances for the payment of DIC benefits to survivors of veterans who die with a permanently and totally disabling service-connected disability which has been in existence for a period of 10 years. This 10 years is, in effect, an add-on or a compromise. This would cost about $0.7 million. And H.R. 11530, a bill which provides additional compensation for veterans who have lost three extremities from service-connected causes; about $0.5 million. H.R. 11531, a bill which would provide for a 6-percent cost-of-living increase in DIC for parents. This cost is about $3.8 million. H.R. 11543, a bill which would provide for a 10-percent increase in compensation rates for veterans rated 30 to 90 percent at age 65. The cost of this bill is $91 million. H.R. 11547, a bill which would increase the special pension paid for Congressional Medal of Honor winners. As you know now, they receive by law $100 a month, and this would increase this to $200 a month. And then H.R. 10567, a bill which would remove the requirement of continuous disability to permit protection of a permanent total disabled rating in effect for 20 years. The cost is insignificant. These bills before us would total out at about $391 million. I would like to say I am glad to see Mr. Guyer here. He was the only one who said he couldn't come to the subcommittee meeting this morning, and you are here. Thank you very much. Our first witness this morning is Larry Roffee, who is executive director of the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Mr. Roffee, since you last appeared before this committee, I believe your title has been updated and you have been promoted. I don't know if your pay has been increased. Mr. ROFFEE. The title has been increased. I took over as the executive director from Jim May, who went to work for the VA. He became one of them. Mr. MONTGOMERY. Oh, he went to the VA? Mr. ROFFEE. Yes, sir. Mr. MONTGOMERY. OK. Nice to have you here today. Mr. ROFFEE. It is a pleasure to be here. STATEMENT OF LAWRENCE W. ROFFEE, JR., EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PARALYZED VETERANS OF AMERICA, ACCOMPANIED BY MS. LYNNE PHILLIPS Mr. ROFFEE. Mr. Chairman and other members of the committee, due to the number of bills being considered and, I imagine, your time constraints, our comments will be directed this morning toward three bills of that whole list which affect our members most closely. First of all is the two-tiered aid and attendance system as proposed in H.R. 10338. We are very pleased to see that you and the ranking minority member of this committee and the chairman of the full committee have introduced this piece of legislation. As you know, we are very anxious to see this passed, and you have our thanks for introducing it. The present aid and attendance system is really inadequate for many very catastrophically disabled veterans. We estimate, along with the VA, that there are about 3,000 very severely disabled veterans who are simply unable to attend to their most basic needs; for example, simply the fact of getting up and out of bed in the morning, getting into bed, feeding themselves, personal hygiene, communications problems they need someone to turn them over at night, they need help with the household tasks, in cooking, cleaning, et cetera. Up until now, these people have only had two alternatives, really: One, to be fortunate enough to have a family to help take care of them or, two, some sort of institutionalization. If you read the National Academy of Science's report on the VA hospital system, particularly the Department of Spinal Cord Injuries, one of that system's comments was just the number of people who are essentially living in spinal cord injury centers in the VA. It is just a total waste of human potential. A lot of those are service-connected veterans. Essentially, many people have become institutionalized. We just really question whether a service-connected veteran should end upservice-connected disabled veteran-should end up living in a VA hospital when there are other means to get him out of the hospital. 27-920-78 Too often, it is simply a lack of funds, and this is the reason we have asked for this two-step aid and attendance system. The higher step would be paid to those people who truly needare truly helpless and truly need constant aid, not medical aid, but constant aid and attendance. H.R. 10338 as introduced, if you will notice, puts in the words, "constant medical aid and attendance." Although we totally support the bill, we have some concerns that that might be interpreted too strictly by the Veterans' Administration. They simply might mean medical aid to be just that, actual attendance of a doctor, intensive-care-type treatment, which is not the purpose, the intent, of this two-step system. When we look at what A. & A. means, it is to help provide the guy with household care, to turn him over at night. It takes a medical aidtype person, not a trained LPN, or not even a trained-or maybe a trained LPN, not even a trained RN. There is a bill, H.R. 9768, which you introduced, and it is written out in full in our written testimony, Mr. Chairman. We use the wordwe supplement, take out "constant"-because of "constant aid and attendance because of severe helplessness," and we have used those terms because both "constant" and "severe helplessness" are already defined in the regulations and would probably be a lot easier for the VA to administer and would be a lot clearer if we could get that language in the bill, sir, and if this committee would consider amending 10338 or going with the original version. I also might point out that the numbers in the 10338 and 9768 were drafted before the cost-of-living increase under 95117, and if they could be raised from-up to $600 and $900-it would be proportionate with your 6.5-percent increase. Turning to H.R. 10337, again we would like to compliment this committee. You have done amazingly well on forecasting the cost-ofliving increase, introducing a bill in January and having it come out approximately right in October. Again, you are to be complimented. We just hope that this committee, as it has in the past, will keep an open mind and looks toward, if the cost of living-and we all hope it doesn't-but if it does increase more than 6.5 percent, that you will keep money in your budget under the Budget Act and be open to a 7- or a 7.5-percent increase. Our third concern this morning is with H.R. 9994. As you know, again, all of our members in PVA are totally and permanently disabled, so DIC and the structural changes in that program have been a high priority of PVA for many years. We would like to see a bill granting automatic nonrebuttable presumptive benefits to totally and permanently disabled veterans. We believe that the medical facts substantiate any claim that, first of all, our life expectancies are shortened. For example, a 20-year-old, not disabled, has 51 years left. If the 20-year-old becomes a complete quad, he has got 21 years left. His life expectancy is shortened by about 29 years. A 20-year-old complete para has about 34 years left; his life expectancy is shortened by about 16 years. Furthermore, the disability, being paralyzed or any very severe disability, places the veterans in positions of jeopardy. Our service officers have identified people who have been stranded in cars and died of exposure overnight. Is that a contributory |