How some veterans exploit the VA disability system

0:00Right now during the President's Day Sale, you can get a Washington Post premium subscription for just$3 every 4 weeks. And that includes three extra accounts to share with friends or family. After your first year, renews at$19 every four weeks. The Washington Post. Power. Perspective. Premium. Learn more at washingtonpost.com slash subscribe.

0:35What you're hearing is sound from a video. It's from the social media profile of a man named William Rasheem Rich. He's filming himself working out. Rich is wearing a white tank top, black headphones. He's standing up, lifting a set of dumbbells up and down, and dancing around with one of the weights. William Rich is a veteran. He served in Iraq in 2005. During his deployment, Rich was severely injured in a bombing and was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down. But gradually, he recovered. Around the same time Rich posted this video of himself dancing around the gym, he was also pretending to still need a wheelchair during medical appointments.

1:17Rich was claiming that he was still paralyzed from the injury he sustained during his military service. For that, he was receiving more than$8 ,000 a month from the federal government in disability. Yeah, but see, I've been receiving permanent disability since about, I've been in a wheelchair since 2005. And I've been, my status is permanent, not temporary. Can you walk at all, sir, or carry anything? Carry? Yes, sir. What do you mean carry? As in carry something up a flight of stairs or walk for a limited time? No.

2:00This tape is a recorded interview of William Rich, but it's actually a sting interview that federal agents had set up where they wanted him to call in and actually catch him in a lie. That's Craig Whitlock, an investigative reporter at The Post. Craig is part of an investigative team that's been looking into fraud and abuse of the disability compensation program run by the VA. William Rich is one of about 70 cases the Post investigated, where a veteran was criminally charged with defrauding the VA program. About a third of veterans claim disability, and this year, federal taxpayers will spend roughly$193 billion on disability compensation for about 7 million veterans.

2:43That's more than taxpayers spend to run the U.S. Army. Craig and the team also collected 25 years' worth of data from the VA about the various medical conditions veterans were claiming to receive disability. And beyond incidents of criminal fraud, like what happened with William Rich, Craig's team also uncovered a wider pattern of abuse of the system. What we found is that it's very easy for veterans to stretch the truth about the nature of their disabilities. And we were really surprised by a lot of the conditions that you can get compensated for. Things like acne or hair loss or jock itch or sleep apnea, which is a very common breathing condition.

3:24These are things that generally don't keep people from working. But VA is spending, you know, tens of millions of dollars on veterans for these ordinary life issues that most Americans have. From the newsroom of The Washington Post, this is Post Reports. I'm Cole Biekowitz. It's Thursday, November 6. Today, the Post's investigation into how some veterans are exploiting the VA's disability program and the attention the Post's reporting has already received from Congress. The attention that these stories have received provides us with an opportunity to have an important discussion about whether this system we have built is serving the needs of veterans today and how we can reform it to better serve those who were designed to help.

4:20Craig, hi. Thanks for joining me. You bet. Thanks for having me. Can we start by describing how this investigation, this post-investigation even got started? Why did you and our colleagues decide to look at veteran disability benefits? So I covered national security issues through the Post. I covered the Pentagon for many years. And one thing, just being on the beat, is you come across a lot of veterans on disability. You know, because of the last 25 years of conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere, it's pretty common for veterans to be on disability. But one thing I noticed is that there were a lot of people, a lot of veterans who were classified as 100 percent disabled by the VA.

5:02And that means on one hand that they get the most amount of money you can under the compensation program. But a lot of these people were not visibly disabled. I'm not trying to minimize what might be wrong with them in terms of illness or injury. But these are people who hold perfectly normal jobs once they left the military. And it just became very common that people would tell you, yeah, I'm on 100 % disability, even though they work full time. Let's explain how the system for claiming disability actually works. So how does the VA determine how much you're owed in disability based on whatever your claim says?

5:40It's kind of complex, as you can imagine with the federal government and with the VA. They assign you a percentage. They do it 10%, 20%, 30%, up to 100 % disability rating. The higher your percentage, the more you get in monthly compensation. If you have a family or dependents, you get more money in those cases. And what they essentially do is they add up all your different injuries or ailments. And different injuries or accidents can get you a certain rating. But what has happened is the more disabilities you apply for, they essentially add up to a certain total. What we found is that there's more and more people putting in for an increasing number of disabilities.

6:2525 years ago, the average disabled veteran had, let's say, two and a half disabilities, you know, tinnitus and maybe arthritis in your knee, say. Now the average is people of seven disabilities. And what we found out is that a lot of people would be encouraged to put in for 10, 15, 20 different conditions. It's technically legal and allowed under the system, but it's really an abuse of the system. It's people putting in for everything under the sun. And the more you put in for, the higher your rating, the more money you get from the government. I mean, how much money are we talking about? Because you said the William Rich, he was at 100 percent.

7:02So he was getting$8 ,000 a month. But do we have like an average, an understanding of like what the average veteran might get? So on average last year, disabled veterans got$25 ,000 a person per year. Now that's on average. If you have 100 % disabled rating, you get about$50 ,000 a year. That's if you're single with no dependents. If you have family members, you get more. There are some categories, people like William Rich, he was almost up to$100 ,000 a year because he needed a full-time caregiver. You needed extra benefits. So there are certain categories you get even more. But on average last year, disabled veterans received$25 ,000.

7:44Now, that's not going to make you rich, but it's tax-free. It comes on top of your regular job, comes on top of a military pension if you retired from the military. So it adds up. You know, over 20, 30, 40 years, you know, we're talking millions of dollars per person. Once you file these disability claims, is there like a renewal process? There is. So they are supposed to check on you every so many years to see if you're getting better. But that was also something we found that, by and large, the VA is slow to do that. There's an assumption that you're not getting better. People are also coached how to avoid having to go back or how to prove you get better or to say that I'm still the same.

8:27And do you have to prove that the injury, the disability, was a result of serving? You do. And so this is something I do want to emphasize. A lot of veterans say the VA is still very difficult to deal with. It's a very complicated bureaucracy. And it is hard to document that you have an ailment that, you know, deserves compensation. But the basics of it are you have to have some kind of medical file that you were treated for something when you were in the military. And if you have that, that goes a long way. But over time, VA made it easier for certain conditions where you don't have to have the proof in the same way.

9:06And I'll give you one example is post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

9:13During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a real concern that there's a lot of veterans coming back with untreated PTSD or untreated depression from the wars. And this is an absolute legitimate problem that the VA need to do a better job of not just giving them medical care, but compensating ones who were affected in their ability to work because of that. So they gradually took away some of those requirements, and they said, well, if you have a buddy letter, somebody you served with who can testify that you had some kind of trauma when you're in uniform or a spouse, or just to say you served in combat, it became much easier to claim this.

9:58One other example is tinnitus. That's the most common disability. Tinnitus is when you have some hearing loss or ringing in your ears. It's pretty common. You know, I have it. I never served in the military, but it's common. And in the military, it makes sense. A lot of people have hearing loss because, you know, you hear artillery going off. There's a lot of loud noises. It's easy to have hearing loss. But it's also something that's easy to fake. You can go in and you have to get checked out. And you can say, well, I can't hear well out of this year. And it's really how do you disprove that? So people have figured out this is an easy way to game the system.

10:34Some of these things like PTSD, even hearing loss, like I can understand the association with having served in a war. But there were some other numbers in your stories, like half a million veterans receive disability benefits for eczema, 81 ,000 for acne. Like how do those relate to serving in Iraq or Afghanistan? Well, with all these conditions, there's a kernel of truth to it, right? Let's say eczema. Well, you know, if you're in uniform, people get eczema, right? You know, you share stuff, you get, you know, you get different contaminants. Let's say you get exposed to toxic substances and why we tried to collect those numbers over 25 years because you would see certain conditions that there would be this explosion in growth and eczema was one of them.

11:21Another one we found was sciatica or lower back pain. That's something that really depends on the patient telling the truth. And what we found is a lot of people are being coached to exaggerate. A lot of these claims agents would tell people, when you go in for your examination at the VA, where they're checking you out to see if you really have these conditions, you want to act as if it's your worst day. That's how they emphasize, you know, you don't want to minimize your conditions. You want to over-dramatize it. And that's how you want to present yourself. Well, you can see how that leads to fraud and abuse and exaggeration when people are being coached to do that.

11:59So you're saying there's some kind of a cottage industry around helping veterans gain the system. It's a very convoluted cottage industry, but there's a lot of money at stake. Remember, you know, there's$193 billion a year that gets paid to veterans in compensation. That's a lot of money. And so some of these consultants out there, they'll say, we can help you maximize your disability compensation if you give us a cut, if you make it. And this has become very profitable for groups. But frankly, a lot of them are good at it. They know how to milk the system. They know what kind of records you need or don't need.

12:37They know how to coach people, how to put in for certain things that are going to pay off in the end. Who are they? Like who make up this industry? So it's a big industry. And traditionally, it was one set of groups. They were veterans advocacy groups like the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars. These groups that were nonprofit groups chartered by Congress there to help veterans. And they would give you free advice and help you file a disability claim. But over the years, a lot of veterans were complaining that this system was very bureaucratic, that these nonprofit groups were slow, and they weren't getting the maximum amount that they thought they were entitled to.

13:19So on the side, there were these unaccredited groups. You know, under the law, you're supposed to be accredited by the VA to put in a claim for a veteran. So these groups on the side said, well, we're not claims agents. We're not putting in the paperwork for them. We're just consultants. And I'm saying that in air quotes, right? It can be lawyers who are trained in this. Or what we found, there is this cottage industry that's grown up online of people on YouTube who are veterans themselves, but have just gotten very familiar with the system and would teach people how to game the system. And their videos are flashy, they're attractive, and they promise, you know, on their videos, it'll say, we can get you to 100%.

14:00We can get you the gold mine. We can help you make this easy claim. The number one question I always get is this. How do I get 100 % P &T? I mean, that's the goal, right? That's what we all want. These are the three best ways to get a 100 % VA disability rating. Top 10 VA benefits for disabled veterans that are 100 % permanent total. By and large, they're pretty effective at it. But the coaching of veterans isn't just taking place online or one-on-one. But the VA and veteran service organizations or advocacy groups like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars, They actually hold classes on military bases for service members as they're getting ready to leave the uniformed service.

14:45These are actually a requirement of federal law to have these transition classes. So all service members go through them when they're leaving the military. And of the classes we attended, one of the real points of emphasis was now it's time to put in for your disability benefits. And the presumption was everybody's disabled by something. So most of these people in the classes, they were medically fit for duty when they were in the armed forces. But as soon as they leave, most of them put in their claims for disability benefits. And they would have these coaches or claim agents with them at these classes walking them through how the process works.

15:24At the military bases. At the military bases, sponsored by VA. and would say, okay, you need to get your medical records and anything that happened to you when you were in uniform, we need to put in for a disability application for it. And some of them were pretty open. There was one woman from Veterans of Foreign Wars who would tell Marines at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, if you so much as burned your thumb while you were off duty cooking a hot dog while you were in the Marines, you can put in for it. And that, I think, is what the culture has changed. It's seen now as an entitlement, as a benefit, as part of your pay package.

16:01But it's lost the correlation with whether you can actually work or not. It doesn't seem like the VA completely turns a blind eye because we have the case of William Rich where they investigated him and determined that he was, in fact, faking his disability claim. So how do those investigations work? I mean, you said that there are times where they will audit. How do they decide who to audit, when to audit? So the VA has an inspector general, like a lot of federal agencies. It's an independent watchdog. The VA, because it's such a big cabinet department, their inspector general's office has actually over 1 ,000 employees.

16:40Now, they do everything from auditing hospitals to construction. You know, any amount of money the VA spends, the inspector general can open an investigation or assess if a policy is being followed. But one aspect of it is they can do criminal investigations. They have policing powers and they can forward cases to the Justice Department and bring charges. So they will investigate fraud, in particular disability fraud. But what we found is when they do bring a case, they have pretty good odds of bringing charges, right? And they have a pretty good track record of getting an indictment and a conviction.

17:14But there are so few cases being brought, maybe just 60 a year into disability fraud, when there's more than 6 million veterans on it. So the odds of you coming under investigation are extremely remote. And really the only cases they will investigate are ones where they can document with video that you're faking it. So again, somebody like William Rich, who they show him in a wheelchair and they show him dancing while he's lifting lates, or somebody who's faking being blind, they show them driving a car. You know, they have to have video evidence of it for it to stand up in court. And those are very time-consuming investigations, so they don't do very many of them.

18:03after the break why past efforts to reform the va's disability compensation program have failed and the reaction from lawmakers to the post reporting we'll be right back

18:27Right now, during the President's Day sale, you can get a Washington Post premium subscription for just$3 every four weeks. And that includes three extra accounts to share with friends or family. After your first year, renews at$19 every four weeks. The Washington Post. Power. Perspective. Premium. Learn more at WashingtonPost.com slash subscribe.

18:57So, Craig, we mentioned at the top of this episode that your team's reporting has already caught the attention of lawmakers. There was a Senate hearing last week in direct response to your reporting. So what was this hearing and how exactly did it come together? So the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, which is chaired by a Republican, Jerry Moran of Kansas, had a hearing last week specifically in response to our reporting because it created a bit of a stir among veterans groups. Recent articles published by The Washington Post have raised concerns and frustrations within the veteran community.

19:35I have heard from numerous veterans and groups who are frustrated that these articles have left an impression that the veterans are engaging in widespread fraud in the disability claim space. And a lot of the advocacy groups like Veterans of Foreign Wars and Paralyzed Veterans of America, they helped veterans file claims. They've lobbied Congress for many years to expand the disability compensation program. And a lot of them were very critical of our reporting, saying that it cast this problem of fraud in an excessive light, and they wanted to sort of head off any efforts that could change the system.

20:14Among those who testified at the hearing was Ryan Gallucci, who's the executive director for Veterans of Foreign Wars Washington office. He in particular said that there's a misperception that some conditions like tinnitus or sleep apnea are quote unquote fake conditions and that it's easy to sort of spotlight a few fraud cases, but that these are legitimate problems. Fraud exists in large systems, Medicare, Social Security and yes, VA. but it's rare and it's prosecuted when it's found. What's not rare are the invisible wounds of war, PTSD, traumatic brain injury, chronic pain, or cancers caused by toxic exposure.

20:55To claim these wounds are embellished or fake is either ignorant or cruel. Invisible does not mean imaginary. But what happened during the hearing is that a number of lawmakers, even though they were careful not to criticize veterans for how they file claims, did sort of open questions about whether the system needs to be improved. And the chairman, Senator Moran, did say they will hold future hearings on this subject. And other lawmakers questioned whether they needed to have a commission to look at the program writ large. Like you said, there were representatives from advocacy groups there testifying.

21:32Who else were the senators hearing from? What were kind of the main takeaways? So another witness was a disabled Army veteran named Daniel Gate, a retired Army officer who lost one of his legs below the knee in Iraq. And unlike a lot of the advocacy groups, he said that there are legitimate, genuine problems with the disability compensation system. This system is anti-thriving, anti-productivity and ultimately anti-veteran. He said exaggeration is a real problem when people file for claims. But he said, in general, the compensation system essentially rewards people for being sick and that it needs to be changed in its approach to sort of encourage people to get better.

22:14For too long, you've been told that the best way to care for veterans is to shovel billions of taxpayer dollars into their pockets. This approach has resulted in a veteran class that is sicker, more marginally employed and more suicidal than ever. Instead of rewarding people for staying sick or injured, it needs to have some sort of element in there to help people get better and focus on that instead of rewarding people, as he put it, for being injured for the rest of their lives. And that his philosophical approach was very different. And did the lawmakers hear from anyone from the VA itself?

22:47Just one witness, Cheryl Mason, who's the new inspector general appointed by President Trump and confirmed by the Senate just a couple of months ago, testified. And in fact, a lot of our reporting was based on investigative documents we had had obtained from the inspector general under the Freedom Information Act. And she acknowledged that fraud was a problem. But again, it's sort of a sensitive issue and she didn't want to be seen as overstating the problem. Well, yes, there are some bad actor veterans who do commit fraud against VA in both benefits and health care. They are few in comparison to the 6.9 million veterans and beneficiaries who receive VA benefits.

23:30She acknowledges that this is something that they need to keep an eye on. And yet she also wanted to minimize the problem, I think, because there was a lot of concern from veterans groups that fraud is perhaps overstated from their point of view. And so is Congress suggesting they'll do anything? Is there anything that any of the senators said, OK, well, we're going to take this on and we're going to try and fix this and make it so that it can't be taken advantage of? I think they were treading pretty carefully. They were acknowledging there are problems, both problems with exaggeration and fraud, but also they do legitimately have problems with many veterans who have genuine injuries.

24:06It still takes them months or years to get adequate compensation. So there's problems on both sides. And I think they were acknowledging that, but they were also treading lightly saying, we need to keep studying it. We need to have more hearings. But I think they're being careful not to get ahead of their skis because they do know it's a politically fraught subject. How long has the VA known that these problems existed or may have existed? Our reporting has shown they've known about this for years. This has sort of been the dirty little secret because it wants to cater to veterans. and the philosophy has been, particularly since the Obama administration, this spans administrations from both parties, right?

24:47This is not a partisan issue. But what we've seen over the last 25 years is whoever is in charge of the federal government wants to cater to veterans. Understandably, they want to take care of people. But a lot of the checks and balances that used to be there has slowly fallen by the wayside. There have been attempts to try and modernize the system. One thing we found is a lot of the rules are pretty antiquated, that the ratings, the amount of money you get for certain conditions are really old-fashioned. And one of the best examples we found, which is one of the most striking, was we talked about sleep apnea, that a lot of Americans have this common breathing disorder.

25:24But modern medicine, if you wear one of those masks at night, you're fine. You can work. It's not a condition that keeps you from doing daily activities. But under the VA system, you get more money if you have sleep apnea on average than you do if you have lost your leg below the knee. Wait, really? If you had your leg amputated below the knee, that gets you less in disability compensation than somebody with sleep apnea on average. And that's one of those things that's so out of whack that even the VA recognized that that didn't make any sense. So several years ago during the Biden administration, they went through this period of new rules and proposed regulations, which, you know, they have public hearings and take public comment.