Salon.com News | Sticker shock over shell shock: "LaBranche, however, may have to prove to Veterans Affairs a second time what the war has done to his mind. In a recent move that has set off a firestorm among veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs has decided to go back and review more than 70,000 individual cases of vets who in the past five years are considered disabled and unemployable because of mental trauma. Veterans like LaBranche now stand to lose some or all of their monthly payments.

To outraged veterans groups, the review smacks of a convenient way to cut costs during an increasingly expensive war and reflects a reluctance by the department to take PTSD seriously. 'The V.A. hopes to trim costs for existing war veterans and recently returning war veterans by targeting PTSD,' says Steve Robinson, executive director of the National Gulf War Resource Center, a veterans advocacy organization in Silver Spring, Md. 'This is a desperate and despicable move by an administration caught without a plan, the money, or the staff to care for our nation's wounded warriors.'"

(Via Salon.)