ILP STATISTICS FOR FY 2003-2012

Here are the VA statistics collated on ILP participation from 2004 to 2012 broken down by individual VAROs. Mr. Bruce McCartney (no relation to Paul) graciously shared them with me. Read them and see if they make any sense to you. How is it such a priceless asset-a diamond in the rough- lies unseen before us?

ILInfoQuery19Dec2012

As most know, I am attempting to follow in the footsteps of another ILP Grandmaster and attain a greenhouse. I do this for many reasons but foremost is to grow healthy food in winter. Some of my medical conditions preclude pursuing them out of doors in winter.  That and the fact that most vegetables are extremely recalcitrant about complying in cold weather are the predicate for my request.

Bruce McCartney has been fighting the ILP battle for as long, if not longer, that I have had the asknod blog airborne. He has fought long and hard for others to attain this as well. His contacts at VA and inside the beltway are many and lucrative. I have had the satisfaction of conversing with some of them and feel there may be some light at the end of a very dark tunnel. As with most fiefdoms, the VR&E folks at each Regional Office feel themselves the kings of their own castles and resent any outside interference. Having run a construction company for several decades, I am more than familiar with the feeling. The glaring difference is my business was a private one-not a government funded affair.

I have written at great length about this unique program and how it impacts many of you who frequent this site. The great majority of you fit the description of who and why it was inaugurated by Congress.

§ 21.160

Independent living services

(a) Purpose. The purpose of independent living services is to assist eligible veterans whose ability to function independently in family, community, or employment is so limited by the severity of disability (service and nonservice-connected) that vocational or rehabilitation services need to be appreciably more extensive than for less disabled veterans.

No one can argue about the horrific, debilitating aspects of this disease. For some of you,  it is not possible to be cured. For others, the cure was worse than leaving it untreated. In sum, we are often some of the more severely disabled among a finite population of marginally mobile Veterans. I do not wish to diminish those who are wheelchair-bound or suffer any number of maladies that restrict your options in life. I can only speak to what I am familiar with and this is a subject I know.

Many Vets with HCV appear outwardly “healthy” in spite of a panoply of ills that are invisible to the naked eye. Nausea is invisible as is right upper quadrant pain that aches perennially. DM2 hounds many who took the cure. Then there are the vast number of unheard of or little known diseases-again rarely visible that restrict where we go and when.  Porphyria and cryoglobulinemia are two that can devastate you if you love the outdoors. A greenhouse can give you that freedom to venture out in cold or sunny weather.

Congress obviously considers its sons of war to be worthy of remuneration other than just compensation funds. That is the predicate for the ILP. A healthy mind can be an inducement to spark the fire of life and dispel depression. So when Mr. McCartney forwarded to me the statistics he has managed to amass (extract?) from the VA bean counters, I studied them in detail. They paint a bleak picture. It would appear that there is a concerted effort to abolish this avenue of recreation for Veterans. It would be nice if we could write this off to the effects of the Sequestration but it predates that by nine or more years on just the existing data I am looking at. Who knows what a more detailed analysis of data prior to 2003 would reveal?

Considering we are coming out of one of the most warlike periods of history following the Vietnam debacle, the “collateral damage”, as we used to say, is enormous. TBI injuries, PTSD, and a host of others are taxing the VA system. Severely (I do not use the word lightly) disabled Vets needing extensive rehabilitation are accruing in the VA system in overwhelming numbers. Unfortunately, VA seems oblivious to this.

Let’s allow the statistics speak. But first, the law. 38 USC §3120(e) provides that:

(e) Programs of independent living services and assistance shall be initiated for no more than 2,700 veterans in each fiscal year, and the first priority in the provision of such programs shall be afforded to veterans for whom the reasonable feasibility of achieving a vocational goal is precluded solely as a result of a service-connected disability.

Congress is anally specific in wording. Note the verb “shall” and not “may”. Next I will excerpt the bottom line of the VA’s own ILP statistics showing how many lucky Vets have been chosen for this lottery annually for the last nine years.

2004     2005   2006   2007   2008   2009   2010   2011   2012  

2689    2693    2839    2540   2235   2035   1880   1899   1836 Annual IL Rehab Totals:

 N/A    2588    2213     2115    1728   1680    2456   2539   2428  New IL case totals:

Trying to sort through this yields some interesting reading. VA would have us believe we were rehabilitating more Vets in the five years from 2004 to 2009 than were actually enrolled. Conversely, their success rate in rehabilitating us took a dramatic nosedive from 2009 to 2012. 

Looking through the individual Regional Office totals, we see that either Vets are too lazy to avail themselves of this resource or that they are oblivious to its existence. St. Petersburg is unarguably one of the larger ROs in America. Nevertheless, in 2012 only 93 severely disabled Vets could be bothered to pursue this commodity. In fact, for three years running, the Vets in Boston are so satisfied with their lot that not even one felt the need to seek these services. Does this sound like our run of the mill Veteran who is always trying to game the system for more money?

Moving right along we see that the Veterans in St. Paul (Minnesota), White River Junction (Vermont), and Wilmington, Delaware are so happy with their lot that they saw no reason to burden the system last year whatsoever.

Most extraordinary and certainly controversial are the Manila RO (Philippines) and the  Wyoming (Cheyenne) ROs. Not one single Veteran has applied for (or perhaps been approved) since the statistics were collated in 2004! Remember, there are a large number of American Vets who have settled there (Manila) over the years. This doesn’t just measure a metric of old World War 2 Philippine Scouts. It is a dynamic figure that includes Vietnam-era Vets and even present day ones who have chosen this part of the world to settle in or return to. Zero. Zip. Nada. Not one single one. Again, where are all these greedy, severely disabled Vets who crowd the hallways of VAROs everywhere demanding all manner of goodies?  As for Cheyenne, Wyoming- are we to assume that the demographic density of 1.5 citizens per sq. mile is so low that there are no Vets-let alone severely disabled ones desirous of what ILP purports to offer?

So, where is the program getting the most respondents?

Atlanta–136

Detroit–134

Houston –106

Montgomery–149

New York–198

This would indicate that either there is an extremely high density of Vets per square mile or an inordinate amount of severely disabled ones in close proximity to these VAMC/ROs. Ooops! What about St. Pete’s? Again, the dichotomy of the data does not lend itself to ready interpretation unless another dynamic is at work. I speak, of course, of a proclivity at certain ROs to deny out of hand as in “What ILP? Never heard of such a thing. Who told you about this? If VA were giving away computers, I’m sure everyone would have heard about it by now.”

Using just the Seattle RO, we know that an inordinately high number of Vets retire or separate from the service here and stay. Joint Base Lewis McChord, the Navy bases on the Puget Sound and other Coast Guard facilities draw large numbers who settle here to have access to the TRICARE and commissary/ BX  benefits. By rights, there should be a fairly large number of applicants. With the war winding down and large numbers of Vets missing appendages from their IED misadventures, we should be able to spot a trend:

2004   2005   2006   2007   2008   2009   2010   2011   2012

41          30          25      37           32        19        33        19         14    Seattle

Ruh-oh, Rorge. Either Vets in Seattle are extremely satisfied with their lot in life or… or, like me, they are being denied based on the misinterpretation that this is only for vocational purposes -e.g. a course of instruction on how to be a pilot or an IT wizard. If you somehow are extremely disabled and qualify for the ILP, fourteen of you (in 2012) got some grab bars and cordless phones. I got a computer after fighting a year and filing a NOD or the number would read 13.

Which brings us to the bottom line. Who, exactly is entitled to this program and what are they entitled to, assuming they are missing the correct number of legs, arms, livers or eyes? We know from the above that it is only the most severely disabled so that identifies the who. Now for the enigma of what. My counselor is adamant that it only entails what he and his cronies at the Seattle VR&E shop say it entails. Apparently, not much.

Here’s what the Office of General Counsel was forced to conclude in 1997. When the BVA is conflusticated and cannot find a good reason to deny a Veteran, they sometimes take a time out and form a huddle. Many things are discussed including how to formulate a durable denial. Occasionally this backfires like an Independent Medical Opinion and comes back in the Vet’s favor. In this case VAOPGCPREC 34-97 did just this. Miraculously, it has remained carefully buried and out of sight ever since. Some ROs have obviously unearthed it and dusted it off.  Others have not or refuse to adhere to the tenets of the holding:

Prc34-97

HELD

1.         No statute or regulation, including section 702 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and its associated regulations, either specifically directs VA to authorize or precludes VA from authorizing services and assistance of a recreational nature as a component of an eligible veteran’s program of independent living services and assistance under 38 U.S.C. § 3120.

2.         VA has the authority, and responsibility, to provide all services and assistance deemed necessary on the facts of the particular case to enable an eligible veteran participating in such a program to live and function independently in his or her family and community without, or with a reduced level of, the services of others.  This includes the authority to approve, when appropriate, services and assistance that are in whole or part recreational in character when the services are found to be needed to enable or enhance the veteran’s ability to engage in family and community activities integral to the veteran’s achieving his or her independent living program goals.

Since then, VA has continued their habit of taking a little off the back and sides and “freshening it up” a little. Mullets are no longer fashionable so VA has incorporated this into their thinking as well. VAOPGCPREC 6-2001  improved and extended the habit of using words to fence out even more of us. “Necessary and vital” became the new buzzwords which help to disenfranchise even more.

prc06-2001l (1)

We’ve come a long way, baby. Unfortunately, it’s all in the wrong direction and getting worse by the moment. At a time when these services are needed more than ever, VA is disingenuously and semantically employing word puzzles to grant nothing more than a pittance. Worse, the IL program’s existence is being denied or misconstrued to be something it isn’t. 2,700 Veterans are allotted slots into this program every year and yet VA maintains they cannot find enough to fill them. Or, in the alternative, not enough qualified Vets come forward to avail themselves of this asset. The statistics say only 2,428 of you saw fit to fill out a Form 1900 and pursue it in 2012. The smart money says move to New York if you want a greenhouse.

P.S. to give you an idea how long this has been dragged out, go back to 2008 and the congressional hearing on it. Advance the film to about 48 minutes and listen to wishful thinking.