{"id":10307,"date":"2026-02-19T18:14:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T18:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/19\/trumps-va-found-a-new-way-to-cut-disability-compensation-for-vets-rolling-stone\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T18:14:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T18:14:24","slug":"trumps-va-found-a-new-way-to-cut-disability-compensation-for-vets-rolling-stone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/2026\/02\/19\/trumps-va-found-a-new-way-to-cut-disability-compensation-for-vets-rolling-stone\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump\u2019s VA Found a New Way to Cut Disability Compensation for Vets – Rolling Stone"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The administration continues to punish the men and women who served the nation<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

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\tThe Department of Veterans<\/a> Affairs this week issued a public notice<\/a> announcing some changes in how it evaluates disability ratings. The administration has been finding ways to shortchange veterans<\/a> since Donald Trump retook office last year, and the VA\u2019s new rules for determining disability ratings, which are how the government determines what kind of benefits veterans receive, appears to be yet another way to erode care for the men and women who have served the nation.<\/p>\n

\tThe new rules, which went into effect on an interim basis on Tuesday, open the door for the VA to slash earned disability ratings from veterans in two major ways, breaking from years of established U.S. law on workers\u2019 compensation.<\/p>\n

\tFirst, the VA can now take medication into account when rating a disability. For example, tinnitus, or ear ringing, is one of the most common conditions for which the VA assigns a disability rating. Under the new rule, if the VA says aspirin or painkillers reduce your tinnitus, they can lower your rating or refuse to rate it at all. \t<\/p>\n

\tSecond, the VA can factor a veteran\u2019s earning capacity into a disability rating. If the VA determines that a veteran is employed, it can deny disability or pension payments entirely. It\u2019s a cruel and arbitrary change. If you give a leg for your country, you should be compensated for it, whether you work a job that requires use of the leg or not.<\/p>\n

\tVA disability ratings are a government acknowledgement that military service led to a permanent condition that affects quality of life and long-term earning capacity. They are given on a percentage scale. One veteran could be rated 100 percent permanently disabled, for example, while another can be rated at 10 or 20 percent for minor injuries or ailments. The percentage determines monthly pay, health care priority, housing and caregiver programs, and other benefits. It is not unemployment assistance. It is indemnity for harm incurred in service.<\/p>\n

\tFor generations, VA disability compensation has followed the same legal logic as workers\u2019 compensation. The compensation is for the injury itself, independent of how well you may be able to manage it. This was codified in U.S. law by Ingram v. Collins<\/em><\/a>, a 2025 case brought against VA Secretary Doug Collins<\/a> in which the court ultimately ruled that when a VA disability rating rule does not explicitly mention medication, the VA must evaluate the veteran\u2019s condition as it is, without the assistance of medication. The decision was designed to protect veterans from losing benefits regardless of whether they followed medical advice. The new rule announced this week explicitly mentions the need to \u201cminimize the negative impact\u201d of Ingram v. Collins<\/em>. \t<\/p>\n

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\tBefore the new policy was announced this week, the VA rated conditions based on their underlying severity over time, not whether medication temporarily reduced symptoms or whether the veteran was employed. A veteran could work and still receive compensation because the payment recognized the existence of the service-connected injury. Tinnitus, PTSD, asthma, and chronic pain were evaluated on medical impairment and functional impact in daily life, while separate programs handled inability to work.<\/p>\n

\tThe VA claims the new rule does not represent any significant change in policy. \u201cThis regulation simply formalizes VA\u2019s longstanding practice of determining disability ratings based on Veterans\u2019 service-related disabilities and any medications they are taking to treat those disabilities,\u201d VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz said in a statement to Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\tVeterans groups see it differently.<\/p>\n

\t\u201cFor years, courts held that VA could not reduce ratings based on the effects of medication, requiring evaluation of a veteran\u2019s true functional impairment when evaluating a service-connected disability,\u201d Veterans of Foreign Wars said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThis new rule reverses that standard, directing examiners to rate disabilities as they present, including the impact of medication, and to disregard unmedicated baseline severity.\u201d <\/p>\n

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\t \t\tRelated Content \t \t<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\tVFW National Commander Carol Whitmore added that while \u201cVA has authority to amend the rating schedule, it must do so without adversely affecting veterans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tColeman Lee, national commander of veterans group DAV, wrote in a statement<\/a> that the group is \u201cextremely disappointed and alarmed by VA\u2019s decision to issue an Interim Final Rule today that could potentially reduce disability compensation for millions of disabled veterans\u201d and that the \u201cnew regulation would allow VA to reduce disability compensation ratings for veterans who take medications to control their conditions or reduce their symptoms.\u201d<\/p>\n

\tThe VA rewriting the rules on disability ratings, like many of the department\u2019s actions since Trump retook office, is in line with Project 2025, which called for a number of measures that would negatively impact health care and other benefits for veterans. \u201cEfforts to expand disability benefits to large populations without adequate planning have caused an erosion of veterans\u2019 trust in the VA enterprise,\u201d Brooks T. Tucker wrote in the notorious right-wing policy manifesto. In fact, the opposite is true.\u00a0 \t<\/p>\n

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\t \t\tTrending Stories \t \t<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n

\tThe Trump administration and Republicans in Congress are already trying to restrict veteran care through bills<\/a> that seek to redirect funds from the VA to outside private providers<\/a>. The disability rating changes, however, are a back-door way for the administration to continue to turn the screws on veterans without congressional authorization.<\/p>\n

\tThe new rule changes could drastically change the way the VA decides compensation and disability claims, which accounts for over 50 percent<\/a> of the VA\u2019s overall budget. As Trump calls for a historic $1.5 trillion<\/a> military budget for 2027 (which Congress supports) while racking up a multi-trillion-dollar budget deficit, it seems once again that veterans will be the ones paying the price so billionaires and trillionaires can get their tax breaks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The administration continues to punish the men and women who served the nation The Department of Veterans Affairs this week issued a public notice announcing some changes in how it evaluates disability ratings. The administration has been finding ways to shortchange veterans since Donald Trump retook office last year, and the VA\u2019s new rules for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10308,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wpinitiate.com\/echo-test\/demo973e36f5\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}