By Rick Maze - Staff writer

The chairman of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee wants to ensure the Veterans Affairs Department doesn't get overwhelmed by extra work in trying to solve the Pentagon's problems with evaluating disabilities.

A bill introduced Monday by Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, the committee chairman, requires the defense secretary to implement uniform rules, modeled after the VA's standard schedule for rating disabilities, for the services to use in evaluating troops' physical abilities and disabilities.

Akaka's bill, S 1252, is a response to perceived flaws in the military's disability evaluation system, which sets ratings based upon a person's fitness for military duties. Akaka said the military's disability rating system may need an overhaul to eliminate big differences between the services, but he does not want the burden to fall on the VA's "already stressed" disability rating system.

"At this time of armed conflict, when there are more injured service members each day, it makes no sense to add more pressure to an already overburdened VA system, especially when there is no indication that VA would do a better job than DoD in making disability ratings," Akaka said.

He described his bill as offering "common sense solutions" to improve the Defense Department's policies.

"As long as there is consistency in how we determine what percentage of disability a service member receives, it should not matter who makes the rating," Akaka said.

For Akaka, the best way to ensure fairness and consistency without swamping the VA is to get the military services to use the VA's rating system and to have defense officials trained in how to uniformly apply that system's standards.

His bill was referred to the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is expected to make a recommendation within weeks about what to do with the military's physical evaluation system. Akaka's is not the only proposal, but the fact that he is chairman of the veterans' committee could give it extra weight.