The Department of Veterans Affairs has halted plans to enforce a controversial rule that would have cut disability compensation for veterans making claims. The decision follows a backlash from veterans groups, which had criticized the rule’s impact on benefits.
VA Secretary Douglas A. Collins posted on X on Thursday that the agency will not enforce the rule but will continue to collect public comments. The department had initially issued the rule Monday and said that it would take immediate effect. The new policy was set to require that medical examiners take into consideration the effects of medication, essentially making it easier for the agency to consider veterans less disabled if their medicine effectively treats their disability.
“While VA does not agree with the way this rule has been characterized, the department always takes Veterans’ concerns seriously,” Collins wrote.
Veterans groups, including Disabled American Veterans, Veterans of Foreign Wars and VoteVets, had protested the rule this week, arguing that it disadvantaged veterans who need medicine for health reasons. Several groups also argued that the quick implementation of the rule had effectively shut them out of discussions.
“Disabled veterans should never be forced to choose between following their doctor’s orders and protecting their earned benefits,” VFW National Commander Carol Whitmore said in a statement. “This interim rule puts that stability at risk, and it must be withdrawn.”
The agency had implemented the change because a court ruled last year that VA examiners should determine “baseline severity” without medication. In the text of the new rule, VA called that an “erroneous interpretation” that would have created systematic delays and caused “an overall increase in compensation expenditures based on a disability level that veterans are not actually experiencing.” The case is currently in the appeals process.
The rule change had stirred debate over how the agency decides the severity of disabilities for veterans and how much to compensate them. The VA’s $193 billion disability program, which makes up a considerable and growing portion of federal spending, compensates about 6.9 million disabled veterans. The administration has sought to rein in waste, fraud and abuse, though mandatory spending like VA benefits and Social Security checks continues to flow without impediment.
A Washington Post investigation last year found that the increasingly costly disability program has been gamed by dubious claims and fraud, including millions of claims for minor and treatable afflictions that would not prevent veterans from finding employment. The agency has said most veterans’ disability claims are legitimate.
The decision to pull back on the immediate implementation of the rule is unusual.
Social Security had been considering a rule to change how it considered age as a factor in disability claims, though Commissioner Frank Bisignano later told advocates he had no plans to move forward with such a proposal, which would have blocked older Americans from qualifying for disability benefits.
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