On a cool November morning, Edward Walkovitz and his wife drove from their home in West Haven to Hamden Middle School to watch a ceremony led by the town for Veterans Day.
The air had a chill, but Walkovitz stood on the grassy hill with dozens of others to watch the ceremony.
Guests like then-Mayor Curt Leng and then-Town Clerk Vera Morrison spoke on the impact veterans have on the Hamden community.
“We honor those who came home, dug their feet in, and made our community,” Leng said.
While speakers thanked veterans and their families for their service, Walkovitz talked about how his faith saved him during his time in the U.S. Army. Walkovitz, 73, served in the Vietnam War for three years, including the Tet Offensive of 1968. He was “positive” that he wouldn’t make it home from Vietnam, but he did. He credited God for saving him.
Walkovitz’s service led to Agent Orange exposure and mobility issues. Agent Orange is a chemical used to stunt plant growth that can cause bladder cancer, Parkinson’s Disease and hyperthyroidism. Since he was discharged from the U.S. Army, Walkovitz has used the Veterans Health Administration for his health care.
“As far as the care I get at the West Haven veteran’s hospital, you can’t beat it,” Walkovitz said.
There are almost 1,300 locations offering services from the VHA across the U.S., 13 of which are in Connecticut. Of the Connecticut locations, two are medical centers in West Haven and Newington while the rest are clinics or health care centers. Some locations, such as the Sgt. John L. Levitow Healthcare Center, offer residential, long-term, care to veterans who need 24-hour assistance.
With over 300,000 employees, the Department of Veterans Affairs is the “largest integrated health care system in the entire country, if not the world,” according to Alfred Montoya, the medical center director and chief executive officer of the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven.
As of April 2021, there are almost 20 million veterans living across the U.S. The number of veterans in Connecticut specifically is around 200,000, making up over 7% of the adult population of the state.
Based on a study from RAND Corporation, a nonprofit global policy think tank, only around 60% of veterans are eligible for health care benefits from the VA based on their discharge status. Of that, only around half of them use those benefits.
“Just because you’re a veteran doesn’t mean you’re eligible for care at the VA,” Montoya said. “In order for a veteran to understand if they are eligible, they need to come in with their DD [Form] 214, their service document, to one of our sites of care where we can enroll them to see if they’re eligible. The eligibility system is actually based on a priority level.”
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, only 26% of Connecticut veterans are using health care benefits from the VA. That is only around 52,000 veterans.
The VA is dedicated to helping veterans access benefits designated to them by state and federal governments. Outside of the G.I. Bill, the decree that offers tuition assistance and other educational support, two of the most significant benefits offered to veterans are disability benefits and health care.
A veteran qualifies for disability compensation when they have a disability that is connected to their service within the military. According to the federal VA, the 2021 compensation rates for disabilities range from $140 to over $3,500 per month. The amount depends on the veteran’s “disability rating” and the number of dependents they may have.
Some veterans get such good health care from the VA that it is a significant part of their lives. Robert Paashaus, a 68-year-old Army veteran, likened the VA to a “father figure.”
“I trust the government so [highly] that I’m always taken [sic] back or surprised by how generous they are with their attention and care,” Paashaus said.
However, he acknowledged that experience isn’t the same for everybody, including his own father, who does not use the VA.
“My dad says they don’t want you around after you’re 75 years old,” Paashaus said. “[He thinks] they want you to die off or something … I said ‘Dad, they take care of people that were in the military, whatever age they were,” … The highest treatments there are are available to anybody.”
The number of veterans has been decreasing rapidly since the ‘90s as veterans from World War II and Vietnam War die. According to the study from RAND Corporation, the number of veterans in the U.S. is set to go down by almost two million by 2024.
While Paashaus said he believes in the effectiveness of the VA, Walkovitz has heard “horror stories” from veterans who have struggled to receive healthcare and other benefits from the government organization.
“Some veterans in other parts of the United States wait several hours waiting to talk to a doctor and in some cases some of them pass away before they get a chance to any doctor,” Walkovitz said. “Horror stories like that kind of bother me.”
For instance, the Manchester Veterans Affairs Medical Center in New Hampshire experienced fly infested operating rooms, unsanitary medical equipment and crashing appointment systems. Montoya was sent in to help rebuild the hospital’s “rough” reputation after The Boston Globe released a Spotlight article detailing several such incidents.
Outside of stories like these, there are many other reasons why these veterans may choose not to access their health care benefits.
The 2020 annual Wounded Warrior Project Survey showed that, while almost three-quarters of respondents used the VA health care system, those who didn’t had similar reasons for not using it. The top three reasons that they did not use the VA as their primary health care provider were that they did not think the quality of care would match other health care options, they had a bad prior experience at the VA and they found VA care difficult to access in terms of appointment availability and parking. While there are only around 120,000 Wounded Warriors out of millions of veterans, their experiences are not unique.
Veterans are often left waiting several weeks to get medical appointments. According to internal data from the VA, the average wait time between scheduling and the actual appointment was around 41 days from October 2019 to June 2020. While those numbers are national, the concern applies to Connecticut as well.
Ralph Blankenship, a 67-year-old Army veteran, waited over a month and a half for an appointment to get new glasses. He didn’t know when he could expect to hear back, even though he didn’t have the glasses he needed to see long distances.
“Sometimes it takes a month, sometimes it takes three months or longer,” Blankenship said.
Another reason that veterans aren’t accessing their benefits is red tape and bureaucracy. Frank Hawley, a 57-year-old Air Force veteran from West Haven, has struggled to get access to some of his earned benefits. Jumping from office to office over the phone, Hawley couldn’t find the right office to source his benefits.
Hawley attended the Stand Down for Veterans event at the VA campus in Rocky Hill on Sept. 24 to try to get answers. The VA and other organizations dedicated to serving veterans hold Stand Down for Veterans every year to provide physical resources and information on their benefits in one location. On the verge of being homeless at the end of September, Hawley was desperate for help.
“Some things are really easy to get resourced,” Hawley said. “My medical and everything is fine, but trying to get my disability together, it’s been really hard and a very long wait.”
Hawley is not alone in struggling to get his disability benefits. Charles Carolla, a 54-year-old Army veteran, also has struggled to get disability benefits from the VA.
“I’ve been fighting for my service disability for 30 years,” Carolla said. “People always tell me ‘oh, this group will help you or that group’ and you go and talk to the groups and they’re not the ones that are able to help you. They don’t know how to help you … I’ve been doing this for 30 years, still fighting it … It’s come to that point where I can’t do any more on my own without having to pay.”
While many veterans like Hawley and Carolla are struggling to access their benefits, there are resources becoming available to help them navigate the state and federal VA.
Recently, the American Association of Retired Persons launched the Veterans and Military Families Health Benefits Navigator, a document to help elderly veterans access their health benefits from the VA.
However, resources to help veterans access their benefits may not go far enough. Carolla said he believes that the entire VA system needs to be revamped in order to better support veterans, starting before they even leave active duty.
“The government knows you’re a vet the minute you leave active duty or the minute you come back from combat,” Carolla said. “They know something’s wrong, but yet they don’t start treating it right away … the VA is there to help you after you get out, but they should start while you’re in. … The cracks in the system get bigger and bigger so that more and more people can slip through.”
Without some form of change, the issues that veterans are seeing within the VA at state and federal levels will continue. Although the level of veterans across the country is decreasing, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t millions of men and women who need help accessing their benefits from a confusing system.
“[The government has] just got to change the system,” Carolla said. “They just got to basically learn to just automatically sign people up [for benefits] and not make people jump through hoops to get them.”
Although change has been slow, the federal and Connecticut VAs are making improvements in their outreach and care of veterans.
[The government has] just got to change the system
Charles Carolla, West Haven resident and veteran
On Oct. 14, 2021, the Social Security Administration and the VA announced that disability compensation would increase by 5.9% in 2022, bringing an $8 to $186 increase in monthly compensation. The move was due to an increase in the annual cost-of-living adjustment by the SSA because of increasing prices in consumer products.
On top of that, Montoya and other officials are working to make the VA more accessible than ever by doing town halls and coffeehouses to get into Connecticut communities to share information on benefits available to veterans.
“I’ve actually been hitting the circuit and doing a lot of the coffee houses around the state to speak one-on-one with veterans,” Montoya said. “When I do that, I also bring an eligibility team. We’re doing a lot this year with outreach.”
The COVID-19 pandemic has even led to more accessibility for the VA. Town halls that would only attract 20 to 30 veterans started gaining hundreds of participants.
“We get upwards of anywhere between 500 and 1,000 veterans that call in,” Montoya said. “We really get that information out there even more [now]. [We’re] really getting out there in the community making sure veterans get their questions answered.”
As more veterans are becoming informed, the VA is working on increasing “high reliability,” a program to close the gaps in experience that patients can experience. Montoya is a part of the National Steering Committee for Patient Safety, an organization dedicated to increasing high reliability in health care.
“I take this very seriously as a medical center director and as a veteran,” Montoya said. “When I’m out in the community at those coffee houses, I give out my government cell phone number and I do that because I think sometimes in a system so large, there are … obstacles that come up.”
According to Montoya, post-appointment surveys conducted out of West Haven in October and November showed a 93.6% trust rate in the VA. While such a large system is not a monolith, Montoya is confident in the Connecticut VA’s ability to serve veterans.
“I think when you have that data come forward, it certainly validates that we have a very strong system in Connecticut,” Montoya said. “That’s what makes me very proud as the director. To be able to lead this strong group and realize that if there are mistakes that happen, that we learn from them … That’s the beauty of high reliability.”