Project 2025: How It Limits Veteran Disability Benefits
And harms veterans (Scroll to the end to listen)
Yesterday, we covered how Project 2025 plans to force veterans to use private-sector “community care” centers and third-party “Medicare Advantage-like” processors to gut the VA.
Today, we show how Project 2025 proposes to narrow veteran eligibility for disability benefits to “save federal money.”
The VA’s Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD) has assigned disability ratings to a growing number of health conditions over time; some are tenuously related or wholly unrelated to military service. The further growth in presumptive service-connected medical conditions pursued by Congress and Veteran Service Organizations, begun with Agent Orange and most recently for Burn Pits/Airborne Toxins, has led to historic increases in mandatory VBA spending in recent years. (Jon Stewart fought for this, and I’m disappointed he’s not using his Daily Show platform to report on this P2025 attack on hard-won disability benefits. - ALW) The VA has a time-phased plan to reassess the VASRD and its ratings for compensation, but this internal process can be slow and laborious, requires Office of Management and Budget (OMB) approvals, and can become politically charged both in Congress and with VSOs.
Project 2025, pages 649 - 650
The framers of Project 2025, and by extension the Fascist Republican Party and their billionaire overlords, intend to reduce veteran eligibility for disability benefits by “updating” the VA’s Schedule for Rating Disabilities (VASRD). They will exclude thousands of legitimate disabilities earned through service to our country in an effort to “save money” on the backs of our veterans and their sacrificial service.
Think I’m exaggerating?
The next Administration should explore how VASRD reviews could be accelerated with clearance from OMB to target significant cost savings from revising disability rating awards for future claimants while preserving them fully or partially for existing claimants.
Project 2025, page 650
The Fascist Republican Party has already targeted another beneficiary of veteran disability benefits - homeless people.
While the Biden Administration celebrates making a dent in veteran homelessness, almost 40,000 veterans were unhoused as of 2020. Veteran homelessness increased by 7.4% in 2023 according to the VA.
Clarence Thomas made no secret of where the Supreme Court should go next - criminalizing addiction.
According to the National Institutes of Health, half of military personnel have reported that they believe seeking help for mental health issues would negatively affect their military career. From the same report, rates of illicit drug use increase when active duty personnel leave military service.
Veterans put themselves on the line for life to serve our country. Read this outtake from the National Institutes of Health:
It is estimated that between 37 and 50 percent of Afghanistan and Iraq War veterans have been diagnosed with a mental disorder.11 These conditions are strongly associated with substance use disorders (SUDs), as are other problems experienced by returning military personnel, including reintegration stresses, sleep disturbances, traumatic brain injury (TBI), and violence in relationships. Onset of SUDs can also emerge secondary to other mental health problems associated with these stressors, such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.3
SOURCE: National Institutes of Health
The Republican Party would make these veterans criminals because of how they treat mental health issues garnered in service to our country. We cannot let them win in November.
**For sharing across social media. Please save and share widely. Thanks.
Calls to Action to Keep P2025 From Ruining YOUR Life
Check your voter registration or register to vote: I Will Vote
Support Democratic campaigns directly in competitive races: Blue24
Support earlyworm’s 2024 Giving Guide: earlyworm
Report a Project 2025 incident: Not On Our Watch
Mail postcards to swing-state voters: Postcards to Swing States (they have a wait list, but still sign up!)
Republicans ambush veterans’ benefits: Mapping the casualties.
"Stab vets in the back Senators...there are real people who face tragic consequences for their fuckery” - Jon Stewart
"In an eleventh-hour act of cowardice, Republicans chose today to rob generations of toxic-exposed veterans across this country of the health care and benefits they've earned and so desperately need. Make no mistake—the American people are sick and tired of these games." - Senator Jon Tester
Where are the veterans who'll suffer from this Republican ambush? Check this map for details by tract, county and state. You'll also see what percent of the adult population they represent and how to contact the Senators who were elected to represent them but betrayed them instead.
https://thedemlabs.org/2022/07/29/republican-ambush-veterans-benefits-pact/
This postcard group has no wait list: https://www.activateamerica.vote