The Department of Veterans Affairs is in a paperwork shambles

But what else is new?

WASHINGTON - The Department of Veterans Affairs must change the way it evaluates former soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder if it hopes to eliminate the wide disparities across the country in how much it compensates those who have the disability, a new report has concluded.

Released Tuesday by the highly regarded Institute of Medicine, the report says that the recent surge in cases of PTSD, coupled with ineffective VA rules, suggests that veterans could be getting disability payments that are too high or too low.

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Post-traumatic stress disorder is one of the most prevalent conditions - mental or physical - to emerge from the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Often tied to intense warfare, the mental condition can manifest itself in hair-trigger nerves, flashbacks and nightmares, which often lead to intense feelings of fear, helplessness and horror. Some former soldiers isolate themselves or try to numb their memories with drugs or alcohol. Some, unable to cope, have killed themselves.

Although some soldiers always have had anxiety or shell shock in the wake of warfare, the acceptance of the diagnosis PTSD became common after the Vietnam War. The report released today shows that the number of veterans who receive disability compensation for PTSD has skyrocketed in recent years, although part of that growth might reflect a new tendency to diagnosis PTSD instead of similar anxiety diagnoses. Veterans diagnosed with PTSD linked to their military service are eligible for monthly compensation checks.

The VA has come under fire in recent years for the way it handles disability compensation cases, including its inability to bring down a huge backlog of cases and reduce its high number of errors. Wide variations among the 57 regional offices that handle cases compound the delays and mistakes.

Among the more vexing problems are the wide swings in the amount of disability payments depending on a veteran's regional office. Veterans in some states get more money per month than those in other states. Currently, a veteran who's considered 100 percent disabled is eligible for a monthly payment of $2,471.

It is so nice to see Bush's Plan A has given enough money to prepare the medical and psychological military services for an inundation of wounded soldiers....