Congress may decide pay for 15,000 disabled retirees

Decision could lag on money for unemployable veterans

By Rick Maze
NavyTimes staff writer
14 February 2005


It appears increasingly likely the Pentagon will defer to Congress about whether unemployable retirees with non-combat disabilities rated at less than 100 percent can receive full military retirement and veterans’ disability checks if they are eligible for both.If so, it would take months — possibly until late this year — for a decision to be reached about whether 15,000 disabled retirees whose non-combat disabilities are severe enough to prevent them from working should receive their full military retirement without the partial offset for the veterans’ disability benefits they receive.Military retirees who have formal 100-percent disability ratings from the Department of Veterans Affairs are allowed to receive their full retirement and disability payments. Those with disabilities from combat or combat-related training were made eligible for both payments two years ago, while those with disabilities from non-combat injuries or disease became fully eligible for both benefits Jan. 1.However, another group of retirees has been left hanging: those with formal disability ratings of less than 100 percent — some as low as 60 percent — who are nevertheless considered fully disabled because their conditions make them unemployable. They are known as “individual unemployability,” or IU, retirees.Since October, when Congress approved the most recent change in the so-called concurrent receipt rules, the Pentagon has been trying to decide whether these disabled retirees with non-combat, but service-connected, disabilities that keep them from working should get their full retirement pay, the same as other 100-percent disabled retirees.In December, defense officials told the White House’s Office of Management and Budget that the Pentagon “intended” to pay the unemployable veterans unless the White House had objections.

Early optimism fades
The language of the letter led the 15,000 fully disabled and unemployable retirees to expect the money in their end-of-January checks. However, the order to begin their payments never went out.In December and early January, officials working on the issue were optimistic that the unemployable retirees ultimately would receive the payments. Now, as a final decision has lagged, officials are less sure.“I think there is as much of a chance of the IU retirees being paid as not being paid,” said one defense official. “If this were a sure thing, the pay order would already have gone out.”If a decision is made to cover the IU retirees, they would be entitled to payments effective Jan. 1, regardless of when the decision came down.Meanwhile, there’s no timetable for making that decision. Officials said there is some talk among policymakers about punting the entire issue back to Congress because it was a lack of clarity on this issue in the 2005 Defense Authorization Act that left open the question if IU retirees are to be covered.If Congress has to pass a new law clarifying coverage, that would likely delay payments, officials said.
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Contributed,
YNCS Don Harribine, USN(ret)