The Lack of benefits available to soldiers returning from the Middle Term Paper

The Lack of benefits available to soldiers returning from the Middle East with mental and physically disorders - Term Paper Example It has been projected by some that close to fifty percent of current Middle East conflict veterans will seek medical treatment from the Veterans Administration. More than sixty percent of these injured veterans will seek short-term treatment, defined as medical care that lasts less than five years, but the other approximately forty percent of them will remain in the Veteran's Administration health care system for the rest of their lives (Patsner, n.p.). Unfortunately for these brave men and women, the resources available to treat injured and disabled veterans are currently severely lacking in quality. There are many reasons for the current situation. Among them are the sheer number of injured veterans returning from these conflicts and the cost of treating them, the type of injuries that are returning home, the number of veterans already in the system that also require care, the inadequacy of the existing system to handle patient transfers when a veteran moves from one part of the sy stem to another, and the lack of preparedness by primary care physicians outside the Veterans' Administration system to deal with war-related injuries. Many Americans are aware of the extremely high costs of the Middle East conflicts, as these operations have resulted in a continuous presence of American military members in that theater since the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center attack. As of the end of the 2010 fiscal year, the United States federal government had spent seven hundred and fifty-one billion dollars in Iraq and three hundred thirty-six billion dollars in Afghanistan (Belasco, p. 1). However, many people are not aware of the costs incurred after the injured veterans of these conflicts return home. One projection states that the costs of life-long medical care, disability benefits, and social security and pension benefits for veterans of the current Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts could eventually total over seven hundred billion dollars, which is more than the over all cost for the first five years of the conflict (Patsner, n.p.). Additionally, up to forty-five percent of Gulf War veterans may apply for long-term disability benefits. Over eighty-eight percent of those applying will be at least partially eligible to receive some form of disability payments. These disability claims could potentially add another three hundred fifty-five billion dollars to the total cost of health care for injured veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts (Patsner, n.p.) The Department of Defense and the Veterans' Administration have been ill-prepared to deal with the flood of injured service members and veterans returning from these conflicts. In 2001, before the current Middle East operations had begun, the number of backlogged Veteran's Administration cases was near one hundred thousand. As of April 2008, the number of unprocessed cases had jumped to over six hundred thousand. This means that not only are the currently returning veterans not being treated efficiently, resources are being re-directed from older veterans and reducing their access to care as well (Kenneth & Burris, 2330-39). This backlog of untreated cases, as well as the complexity of the application process for use of the Veterans' Administration medical resources, can lead to more issues of aggravated injuries for those veterans that are not adequately and quickly treated for their injuries. Due to the lack of screening as veterans separate from active