Social welfare program critique and effectiveness

Sociology

The Department of Veterans Affairs

The Veterans Administration is a social welfare program that provides a variety of benefits to America's veterans of the armed services, and it has been in the news recently due to several factors. The Veterans Administration or the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) has been in effect since 1989, before that it was the Veterans Administration. It offers health, housing, and even burial benefits to U.S. veterans of all the armed services and their families. The VA is the second largest of the Cabinet Departments, and it administers programs for millions of Americans. Its Web site notes, "Approximately 74.5 million people are potentially eligible for VA benefits and services because they are veterans, family members or survivors of veterans" (Editors, 2008, p. 1). The VA was created in 1930 by President Herbert Hoover, and has undergone renovation several times since then. Today, it provides medical care, mental health care, insurance, housing loan assistance, burial benefits, and many other benefits to American veterans and their families, and many times veterans do not know that many of these benefits even exist.

The VA helps rehabilitate and care for permanently injured soldiers, it pays benefits to surviving spouses and children, and it offers a variety of other services to veterans. It is an essential part of the U.S. military because there are so many veterans who are serving and have served our country, and there is nowhere else for them to get help when they need it. In addition, with the thousands of veterans injured in Afghanistan and Iraq, the VA serves a vital function in helping these soldiers reenter society, no matter what their injuries or mental conditions. Without the VA, there would be even more ill, injured, and homeless veterans using other American social services, and they would tax many social systems.

As can be imagined, with such a large and diverse government organization, there is much bureaucracy in the VA. One writer notes, "The VA is a large, complex bureaucracy with a wide variety of benefit programs and many entry points. It was very difficult for new veterans to navigate the system, despite VA benefits briefings" (Manske, 2006, 234). This "complex bureaucracy" may at least partially explain the controversy that surrounds many Veterans Hospitals after accusations of poor conditions and health care have tarnished the VA's image during the past year. Two Washington Post reporters write, "Stories of neglect and substandard care have flooded in from soldiers, their family members, veterans, doctors and nurses working inside the system" (Hull and Priest, 2007, p. A01). The arguments against these problems has steadily grown, and as they have grown, new problems have been uncovered. With so many returning veterans, the VA is finding it difficult to cope with the sheer numbers of veterans involved. The Post reporters continue, "Nearly 4,000 outpatients are currently in the military's Medical Holding or Medical Holdover companies, which oversee the wounded. Soldiers and veterans report bureaucratic disarray [...] indifferent, untrained staff; lost paperwork; medical appointments that drop from the computers; and long waits for consultations" (Hull and Priest, 2007, p. A01). Thus, the VA needs new procedures, it needs to streamline operations, and it needs to ensure the needs of all veterans are being met, and right now, that is not happening, and it is the biggest criticism of the program.