Tribune News Service — For-profit consultants across the country make millions each year by charging military veterans for help in filing their disability claims with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
The practice exists in a legal loophole: It’s illegal under federal law for companies that aren’t accredited by the VA to charge veterans fees for helping file their disability claims, but there’s no criminal penalty for breaking the law. Recent attempts to regulate this for-profit shadow industry have stalled in Congress.
While some state lawmakers are trying to close the loophole by filing bills to restrict the practice, they’re up against their legislative peers and a cadre of industry leaders with a stable of lobbyists who want the loophole sealed into place at the state level.
Three states — Maine, New Jersey and New York — passed laws in the past year cracking down on for-profit consultants. Similar bills were introduced in 17 other states.
Meanwhile, Louisiana enacted a law hailed by the for-profit industry as a win; it allows companies to charge up to $12,500 in fees for a task that veterans service organizations such as The American Legion will do for free.
The issue is pitting veterans against one another.
“When we have organizations and companies out there like these claim sharks that are preying on our veterans and taking away their hard-earned benefits and making a profit off them, there’s something empirically wrong with that,” said Missouri Republican state Rep. Dave Griffith, a former Green Beret in the U.S. Army 8th Special Forces Group.
Griffith introduced a bill earlier this year that would impose criminal penalties on those receiving compensation for helping a veteran apply for benefits. The bill died in committee, but Griffith has refiled it for the upcoming legislative session.
“What’s even more disturbing to me,” said Griffith, who served in Vietnam, “is that many of these organizations are run by veterans.”The for-profit consulting industry argues that veterans should have the freedom to hire whomever they want to help them navigate the VA’s plodding, glitchy application process. Disability claims currently take four or five months on average to resolve, according to […]
States go after ‘claim sharks’ that charge vets for help with disability claims
