Op-Ed: California’s SB 694 will hurt the veterans it’s trying to protect

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California lawmakers are considering SB 694, which they say will help veterans. But the bill may actually prevent more veterans accessing hard-earned benefits from the Department of Veterans Affairs.

I am a Vietnam veteran who spent more than five years in the same prison camps as former Sen. John McCain. Like other “Hanoi Hilton” prisoners, I was beaten and tortured. I also passed food to keep others alive and tapped messages out through the walls so we could remember we were still human.

After being rescued and returning home, I was able to lead a “normal” and even exceptional life. I served in high-level executive positions at several large companies, including BOC Gases, BF Goodrich, and Mid American Energy. As an airline pilot, I flew all over the country and experienced so much of the good that America offers, and I now enjoy retirement with my wife Lois, two children, and growing grandchildren.

I overcame my own health challenges, too, unfortunately with little thanks to the VA bureaucracy. Yes, I ended up working with a good VA-affiliated care provider, but only after I was first directed to drive hours to my appointments, at which point my wife stumbled upon another option that the VA would never have revealed to us.

Many veterans don’t even have blind luck to help them in their bad times. We who served in Vietnam did not exactly receive a standing ovation, as our parents did after World War II (rightly) and today’s warriors have during the War on Terror (rightly again!). Many veterans were unable to fully move forward with their lives, in part because today’s comprehensive physical and mental health research and institutions didn’t exist. And the American public discovered in 2014, to their horror, that the VA was actively covering up how it had abandoned many who were relying on it.

Eleven years later, the VA is still leaving many veterans behind … which brings us back to California. SB 694 bans all fee-based companies that help veterans navigate the VA in an effort to stop scammers. However, if honest fee-based brokers get swept up in the dragnet – and they will – then veterans will be left with the same options that have already failed them.

That’s why lawmakers should stop SB 694. It swings a hammer when scalpels are needed. Almost nobody disputes that the VA continually fails our veterans, or that the morass leaves veterans vulnerable to predators who offer expensive “advice” anyone can find on YouTube. Lawmakers can go after those guys without persecuting the good guys providing veterans – yes, for a fee – with a lifeline.

A federal court recognized this earlier this year, striking down New Jersey’s version of the same law. Judges understood what California legislators do not: veterans need choice. They need access to trustworthy partners who can help them cut through red tape, not a state mandate that leaves them at the mercy of a dysfunctional system.

And that system has devastating consequences for people who wore the uniform. Veterans make up about 11% of America’s homeless population, with tens of thousands more struggling with untreated PTSD, substance abuse, or brain injuries that make employment nearly impossible. The average veteran waits over 100 days just for an answer to an application, and about 40% of claims are denied. Volunteer groups and lawyers help where they can, but many veterans are left with no good options.

Fifty-seven years ago, I began a five-year journey of helping “Hanoi Hilton” comrades survive. But while my military duties may be behind me, my obligations to our nation are not. That’s why I’m speaking out against SB 694 - to help even more veterans survive the battles they face upon their return from the fields of war.