Press Releases

WASHINGTON, D.C. - As the Chairman of the Technology Modernization Subcommittee, Congressman Matt Rosendale (MT-02) exposed the negligence of the VA over the system crash that put veterans at risk of not receiving the benefits they have earned. 

“I absolutely agree that veterans should be able to manage their health care and benefits online, rather than waiting on hold with a call center to do everything,” said Rep. Rosendale.

“Nearly 100,000 veterans—that we know of—have been struggling with the VA.gov bugs to access their benefits. In some cases, these problems have been happening for years, but VA officials only recently discovered and disclosed them.”

“We are going to get to the bottom of what happened and whether the glitches extend beyond the benefits functions of VA.gov and into other areas.” 

Key Background:

• In January, the VA notified the Committee that about 32,000 veterans’ disability compensation claims submitted through the website had been rejected. The website didn’t alert the veterans that an error had happened, so they thought everything was normal. It took the VA seven months to send letters to notify Veterans about this issue.
• In August, as the intent to file deadline under the PACT Act was approaching, around 5,600 veterans received error messages when they tried to submit them on the website. The VA initially had no idea it was happening.
•  Three weeks ago, the VA disclosed two more problems:
  • About 900 veterans were unable to access the notice of disagreement form on VA.gov to appeal denials of their claims. This went on for about five weeks before being discovered.
  • On top of that, more than 56,000 veterans’ requests to add or remove dependents on VA.gov and its predecessor were not processed, causing them to be overpaid and underpaid.