Sure. I'll try to make it quick, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Lizon.
I would definitely agree that pushing the online and digital access doesn't always work. I'm under the ago of 40 and I can't figure out the Veterans Affairs website at all, and I'm quite technically savvy when it comes to computers.
The other issue, which I'm sure you've heard before and which we get quite often, is that there is a feeling of—how do they say it?—deny, delay, die. The feeling from a lot of our members out there is that you're never going to get.... Your disability application is always going to be denied the first time. Ninety percent of the time it's denied, and then you have to wait and find out why it is denied. They say, oh, you need this. Oh, well hang on—that will take another six months. Oh, we need this piece of paperwork. You give them that piece of paperwork and then it's, oh, I'm sorry—we also forgot to tell you that you were missing this, and here are some more reasons.
So the timeline goes on, and a lot of veterans feel that the entire process is testing them to just give up. A lot of them do. They cannot handle the stress. They get the Veterans Affairs envelope and they don't even want to open it. It scares them. It throws them into anxiety, and a lot of them walk away from benefits that they rightly should receive because of the way they're treated by Veterans Affairs, as if they're begging for these services that they're rightly entitled to.
I think that needs to change.
Thank you.