How some veterans exploit $193 billion VA program, due to lax controls
By Craig Whitlock, Lisa Rein and Caitlin Gilbert
October 6, 2025
Military veterans are swamping the U.S. government with dubious disability claims — including cases of brazen fraud totaling tens of millions of dollars — that are exploiting the country’s sacred commitment to compensate those harmed in the line of duty, according to a Washington Post investigation.
Taxpayers will spend roughly $193 billion this year for the Department of Veterans Affairs to compensate about 6.9 million disabled veterans on the presumption that their ability to work is impaired. VA officials say most veterans’ disability claims are legitimate.
Yet The Post found that millions of the claims are for minor or treatable afflictions that rarely hinder employment, such as hair loss, jock itch and toenail fungus. 1
About 556,000 veterans receive disability benefits for eczema, 332,000 for hemorrhoids, 110,000 for benign skin growths, 81,000 for acne and 74,000 for varicose veins, the most recently available figures from VA show. Individual payouts for such mundane conditions vary, but collectively they cost billions of dollars per year.
In contrast, far fewer veterans receive compensation for certain combat-related injuries. About 10,900 service members who have suffered “severe” or “penetrating” brain injuries since 2000 are eligible for benefits. Fewer than 1,700 receive disability payments for losing limbs during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq...
Army soldiers watch as trash burns in a pit near a base in Afghanistan in 2012. A 2022 law, the Pact Act, makes it easier for veterans to claim benefits based on exposure to airborne toxic substances in war zones.
The trouble with US veterans benefits isn’t ‘rampant’ fraud – it’s bureaucratic roadblocks, advocates say
Veterans groups say recent Washington Post stories on VA disability payments paint a misleading picture. The paper stands by its reporting
Aaron Glantz
4 Nov 2025
The trouble with US veterans benefits isn’t ‘rampant’ fraud – it’s bureaucratic roadblocks, advocates say
Veterans groups say recent Washington Post stories on VA disability payments paint a misleading picture. The paper stands by its reporting
In October, the Washington Post reported that it had uncovered “rampant exaggeration and fraud” in the US Department of Veterans Affairs’ disability benefits system.
“Military veterans are swamping the US government with dubious disability claims … exploiting the country’s sacred commitment to compensate those harmed in the line of duty,” the newspaper reported.
But the Post’s claims about American veterans committing disability fraud are fundamentally flawed, according to government documents, legal experts, current and former VA officials, members of Congress, advocates and veterans themselves.
They say that the Post’s reporting fails to account for the physical and mental toll of sustained military conflict on service members – and improperly casts the actions of several dozen veterans convicted of lying about their disabilities as representative of widespread fraud.
Rather than providing evidence of a pervasive problem, experts say, the convictions show that the system for combating fraud is working.
The American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, Vietnam Veterans of America and Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America have condemned the Post’s series of stories as misleading and insulting to veterans who have sacrificed for their country.
Others worry the Post’s stories will be used as a pretext to reduce benefits for former members of the US military. Project 2025, which has served as an intellectual guide for Donald Trump’s second term, proposes that the VA “target significant cost savings” by “revising disability rating awards for future claimants”…
Dr David Shulkin: ‘Veterans are forced to navigate a benefits system that places the burden on them to gather extensive documentation.’
