Workman’s comp pays for
work-related injuries/illnesses. Military disability pays for
complaints that begin after enlistment and one year out (more years for some presumptive stuff). Service related should mean something that happens doing your job. Currently it means much more than that and compensates so much better than civilian world.
Military disability includes essentially anything that arises: diabetes, anxiety, depression, sleep apnea, GERD, fibromyalgia (I.e. even complaints of aches and pains with no injury event), etc.
A CT scan I had showed degenerative disk. This is surprisingly common in young people. Yet that would likely get me 10% rating. Many people with high physical ratings along with high psych “disabilities” can still hit the gym and pass the police academy, and in fact, they encourage it.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news...ans-become-cops-some-bring-war-home/99349228/
"In states with the most stringent hiring preferences, such as New Jersey and Massachusetts, a police applicant who was honorably discharged from the military leaps over those who don’t have those credentials. Disabled veterans outflank military veterans with no documented health concerns. Thomas, the PTSD-afflicted Newark cop, held a secure place on the sergeant's promotions list because of his time with the New Jersey Air National Guard.
[…]
Smith re-joined the force with a 100% disability rating, suffering from flashbacks, blackouts, and waking-nightmares; nevertheless, the department assigned him to patrol a high-crime area of town known as “the War Zone.”
[…]
When police officers return to work after a military deployment, federal law — the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act — prohibits their departments from requiring blanket mental health evaluations. Because of the Americans With Disabilities Act, police departments can’t reject a job candidate for simply having a PTSD diagnosis.”
It was low intensity, so even for combat, “shell shock” cases are rare, and while I don’t have the numbers with me, many people who went to Iraq & Afghanistan probably never left the FOB or for just a small portion of the deployment. They had creature comforts even there. This also is about
every veteran since 9/11. Support roles across the states and elsewhere outnumber combat roles by a lot.
7000+ Killed x 7 for wounded in action hardly explains it.
Here, I’ll give you a clue:
"To get paid for PTSD, veterans must link their symptoms to trauma that occurred during their service. In 2010, the VA expanded what situations could qualify. Credible fear of being attacked — without actually suffering or witnessing violence — became sufficient.
The VA also dropped its requirement to support each case of war-related PTSD with records of the underlying trauma. Those veterans are now taken at their word.
After the changes, the number of new PTSD claims rose 60% to more than 150,000 a year, and approval rates jumped from 55% to 74%" [I think this figure doesn’t include appeals].
This is just PTSD, You still have anxiety, depression, and adjustment disorder.
In civilian world, it’s seen as temporary and people are expected to move on with no compensation. About a dozen states don’t even have PTSD workers’ comp for the first responders (lots only changed in recent years), others have it but also require a physical injury, and if they do have it without a physical element, it’s still more restricted and temporary with shit payouts relative to military.
New York:
PTSD: Prognosis
PTSD is a complex phenomenon. While the impact of PTSD on the lives
of affected persons is significant, there is a notable body of evidence that
indicates that PTSD may be successfully treated using established,
evidenced based methods discussed below. Despite the complexities of
PTSD, the prognosis is good with the vast majority of people recovering
to lead productive lives. A minority (approx. 4-22%) develop chronic
PTSD.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article249810168.html
Kansas first responders with PTSD ‘suffered in silence.’ Workers comp doesn’t cover it
“Always infuriating seeing that guy who spent his whole contract on profile, never did any field events or deployments and then somehow gets 70% disability. Makes you feel like an idiot for putting effort into your job”
Duckworth directed her ire at Castillo, but the real culprit was the broad eligibility criteria of the disability system itself. The contractor had played by the rules for benefits and, as many Washington lawmakers know, those benefits cover ailments from sports injuries to bullet wounds, resulting in disability payouts that totaled $58 billion this fiscal year — up from $49 billion last year.
Routinely criticized in government reviews as out of touch with modern concepts of disability, the system has strayed far from its official purpose of compensating veterans for their lost earning capacity.
Yet lawmakers are unwilling to support reforms — or even to criticize the system publicly.
“If Social Security is the third rail of American politics, then the VA disability system is the fourth, nuclear rail,” said Michael McLendon, a top VA policy official until 2006.
Duckworth, a Democrat, declined to be interviewed about the disability system. So did Republicans who have led attempts to end unnecessary federal spending, including Arizona Sen. John McCain and Reps. Darrell Issa of California and Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.
[…]
“I defy you to find another side to the discussion about vets,” said Bill Brew, a Vietnam veteran who spent 25 years on staff of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs before retiring in 2011. “It doesn’t exist.”
As the number of U.S. veterans has declined from 26.4 million to 22 million over the last 14 years and military service has fallen to a small number of volunteers, “Thank you for your service” has become a national meme as the political parties compete to stand up for them.
The arcane rules of the disability system are protected by what Brew and others on staff came to refer to as “the iron triangle”: The VA, veterans groups and lawmakers.
“The easy course is to spew the rhetoric that is wildly supportive of veterans,” Brew said.
It’s VASTLY better than options civilians have.
If not PTSD for mental part, the military as mentioned above has a fallback in the psych eval with high anxiety and depression ratings, and “adjustment disorder”. Malingerers routinely get rewarded and people get high ratings for shit that has nothing to do with the military. A big one for career military is sleep apnea. If in the lucky 20% who get 100% sleep apnea, that’s better than officer retirement.
“Seriously though, if you’ve EVER worked shift-work, please get a sleep study done before you separate. It’s an *easy 50% guys.”
*He says this because a lot of people who get the rating aren’t actually tired at work, but regardless probably 99.999% is from being overweight.
That’s only in the case of retirement. Military disability is almost never decreased, but it is common for an increase. Moreover, 60% and higher can possibly be paid the same as 100% P&T under a few easy to meet conditions if the veteran doesn’t want to work, and they can have expedited SSDI claims too with no offset. Besides that, you’re not even bothering to compare to civilians if you want to suggest that those numbers aren’t much.
https://www.benefits.va.gov/BENEFITS/factsheets/serviceconnected/IU.pdf
“Individual Unemployability (IU) is a unique part of VA’s disability compensation
program. It allows VA to pay certain Veterans compensation at the 100 percent rate,
even though VA has not rated their service-connected disabilities at that level”
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