[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6114]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             THE VETERANS BENEFITS CLAIMS FASTER FILING ACT

  (Mr. O'ROURKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. O'ROURKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Veterans 
Benefits Claims Faster Filing Act. This no-cost legislation will 
shorten the time that veterans must wait for their claims to be 
decided.
  Nationally, the average wait time for a claim is nearly 300 days. In 
El Paso, Texas, the veterans I represent wait an average of 439 days. 
We must do better.
  My legislation will require the VA to report and post processing 
times and award rates for claims filed in a variety of ways, from the 
fastest way, which is a fully developed claim filed online, to the 
slowest way, which is filing an underdeveloped claim on a non-
standardized piece of paper.
  Informing veterans that they will wait the least amount of time if 
they file fully developed claims online will create an incentive to do 
so. Fully developed claims are consistently turned around in 100 days 
or fewer. Imagine a veteran in your district saving months of waiting 
unnecessarily for a decision on their claim.
  We owe a lot to our veterans, and we can uphold our end of the 
bargain to them by ensuring that they receive the benefits they have 
earned and depend on in a timely manner.
  I urge all of my colleagues to support the Faster Filing Act.

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