[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 4]
[House]
[Page 5560]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1340
                DISABLED VETERANS RED TAPE REDUCTION ACT

  (Mr. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission 
to address the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. SEAN PATRICK MALONEY of New York. Mr. Speaker, no one should 
fight for their country, only to return home and have to fight their 
government. But that's exactly what's happening with over a million 
disabled veterans today who are waiting far too long to have their 
claims processed by the VA.
  There are, right now, thousands of folks in my home State of New York 
and in the Hudson Valley who are waiting, on average, over 400 days to 
have their claims processed. That's a year and a half. That's wrong, 
and we can do better by our veterans.
  I met one veteran recently named Edward Kackos. Ed served his country 
in Vietnam. He came home. He filed a disability claim just in February 
2011. But that was 800 days ago, and Ed's still waiting for an answer. 
He said to me recently, ``Sean, I just need an answer so I can decide 
whether I'm going to have to sell my house, because I don't want to 
have it foreclosed.''
  Think about how disgraceful that is. We need to give him an answer 
sooner, and there's a solution.
  I recently introduced the Disabled Veterans Red Tape Reduction Act. 
This is a simple idea that would allow veterans to go to doctors 
outside the VA system to get their claims processed, and it would speed 
it up.
  But this program is at risk right now, a program that 20 percent of 
all veterans use, because the last Congress failed to reauthorize it.
  I urge my colleagues to support this measure for another 5 years.

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