[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7488]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          PAY AS YOU RATE ACT

  (Ms. TITUS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. TITUS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to encourage my colleagues to 
join me as original cosponsors of the Pay As You Rate Act.
  The Veterans Administration currently has more than 1 million backlog 
cases, and 70 percent of these have been under review for more than 125 
days. For some veterans like those in southern Nevada, the average time 
to process a claim is close to 500 days. This is just unacceptable.
  The Pay As You Rate Act will ensure that veterans receive at least 
some of their benefits in a more timely fashion.
  Currently, the VA withholds benefit payments to veterans until their 
entire claim has been reviewed and processed. This is a serious 
problem, especially for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans whose average 
claim contains 8.5 separate components.
  The Pay As You Rate Act will require the VA to pay veterans benefits 
as each element of the claim is reviewed rather than waiting until the 
entire package has been processed. This is a commonsense change which 
will put money in veterans' pockets sooner and also address the 
backlog.

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