Why It Matters
The House Veterans' Affairs Subcommittee on Technology Modernization held a hearing on the Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics (PACT) Act VA disability claims modernization on July 13, exposing a fundamental tension between the Trump administration's push to accelerate claims processing through artificial intelligence and Democratic concerns that workforce cuts are undermining accuracy and veteran service. The Trump administration is aggressively deploying AI tools to process the historic surge in claims triggered by the 2022 PACT Act, while lawmakers from both parties and veterans advocates warned that speed cannot come at the expense of quality or human oversight.
The hearing revealed sharp divisions over whether the VA can meet veterans' needs through technology alone when it has simultaneously shed thousands of employees.
The Big Picture
When President Biden signed the PACT Act into law on August 10, 2022, it represented the largest expansion of veterans' benefits since the GI Bill was passed in 1944. The law expanded eligibility to 3.5 million veterans and added over 20 new presumptive conditions for toxic exposure. Since enactment, the VA has received more than 3.5 million PACT Act-related claims.
The sheer volume forced the VA's hand. The agency's historical claims backlog exceeded 600,000 at its peak. To manage the flood, the VA submitted a five-year modernization plan in March 2023, guiding the agency through more than 147 modernization efforts at the Veterans Benefits Administration. The plan is scheduled to end in 2027.
The VA has deployed AI-assisted claims routing and document digitization tools to reduce manual processing steps. It has expanded the use of natural language processing to extract relevant medical evidence from unstructured records. The agency has digitized more than 1.2 billion veteran claim evidence documents and achieved a rating backlog decrease of more than 73% since January 2025. The backlog has stayed below 75,000 since May 6, 2026.
By the numbers, the VA's modernization efforts appear successful. The VA announced it processed more than two million disability benefits claims in fiscal year 2026 as of June 1. Claims-processing accuracy has increased to 94.02%, the highest 12-month rate in two years, according to the VA.
But beneath these metrics lies a troubling reality that dominated the hearing: the VA has simultaneously lost over 1,100 veteran claims examiners in the current fiscal year. Since January 2025, the VA is down nearly 2,700 examiners and 1,200 IT specialists.
Gains Masked by Losses
The hearing revealed a paradox at the heart of the VA's modernization strategy. The agency has achieved measurable wins: a 73% reduction in the rating backlog since January 2025, processing time that fell from 141.5 days to 80.7 days, and claims-processing accuracy at a two-year high.
Yet these gains came amid historic staffing losses. The VA is running leaner while processing more claims through automation and AI. The question the subcommittee grappled with is whether this approach is sustainable or whether the VA is borrowing from the future by burning out remaining employees and deferring maintenance on aging systems.
The Government Accountability Office's (GAO) recommendation that the VA conduct bias audits on AI-assisted claims adjudication tools before full deployment went unaddressed by VA witnesses. So did the concern that PACT Act claims have a higher complexity profile than typical disability claims due to the breadth of presumptive conditions.
What They're Saying
The hearing pitted the VA's optimistic narrative about AI efficiency against a chorus of warnings from lawmakers and veterans' advocates.
"These tools support human decision making; they do not replace it," testified Robert Orifici, Acting Deputy Chief Information Officer at VA's Office of Information and Technology.
But Rep. Nikki Budzinski, the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Technology Modernization, presented a starkly different picture. "VA employees have reported losing up to one hour each day because of system lags and crashes," she said. "Claims examiners are expected to reach daily quotas despite system issues, with excluded time granted inconsistently."
Dr. Sterling Thomas, the GAO's Chief Scientist within the Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics division, delivered the most damning assessment. "Unresolved weaknesses in program management and information technology remain a serious concern as the VA moves toward AI-assisted claims processing," he testified. The GAO flagged that the VA lacks a comprehensive strategy for AI governance, performance measurement, and risk management. Of 43 recommendations issued since 2021, 15 remain outstanding.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars and Paralyzed Veterans of America, both testifying as witnesses, struck a careful balance. They acknowledged that technology is necessary to handle PACT Act claim volume. But they insisted on guardrails.
"Speed of processing must not come at the cost of accuracy or fairness," the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) warned. The organization called for the VA to maintain robust in-person and paper-based claims pathways alongside digital tools and urged Congress to fund veteran service organization accreditation and capacity-building.
The Paralyzed Veterans of America went further, demanding that any AI tool used in claims adjudication be explainable so veterans and VSOs can understand why a claim was decided a certain way. Paralyzed Veterans of America (PVA) members often have multi-system, catastrophic injuries such as spinal cord injury and traumatic brain injury that generate highly complex claims. The organization called for a mandatory human review layer before any AI-assisted denial is finalized.
Subcommittee Chair Tom Barrett pushed back against what he characterized as a false choice between technology and human judgment. "There must be strong guardrails where no veteran claim is fully decided by AI or automation," he stated. "Every disability claim is decided by a trained VA employee, not by AI or automation."
But the tension was palpable. Rep. Budzinski noted that the Veterans Benefits Management System, or VBMS, was promised to be an all-encompassing system to ease the disability claims process with better touchpoints and quicker results. Instead, frontline employees described themselves as "unpaid software testers" rather than claims examiners. In 2015, the GAO found VBMS to be rife with system defects. VA finally launched a tool to solicit feedback from employees almost 10 years later.
Political Stakes
For Rep. Budzinski and Democrats on the subcommittee, the hearing reinforced their argument that claims processing requires sufficient staffing levels, not just new technology. The fact that the VA has lost nearly 2,700 examiners since January 2025 while simultaneously rolling out AI tools raises questions about whether the administration is using technology to mask workforce depletion rather than enhance service.
For the VA witnesses, particularly Orifici, the hearing offered a chance to defend the agency's modernization efforts and emphasize human oversight. But Orifici's assertion that AI tools "support" rather than "replace" human decision-making rang hollow against testimony from frontline employees about system crashes and productivity losses.
For veterans advocates, the hearing was an opportunity to establish red lines. The Paralyzed Veterans of America and Veterans of Foreign Wars both signaled openness to technology modernization while demanding transparency, explainability, and human review. Their presence at the hearing—a rarity, as Rep. Budzinski noted, underscored the stakes for the veteran community.
The Bottom Line
The modernization plan is scheduled to end in 2027, forcing a reckoning. Rep. Barrett indicated the subcommittee will not simply rubber-stamp the VA's approach. "The subcommittee's job is to ensure VA is meeting the expectations of the law, specifically the PACT Act," he said.
The GAO recommended that Congress require the VA to report regularly on AI tool performance, including error rates and disparate impacts on veteran subgroups. The Paralyzed Veterans of America called for legislation requiring the VA to disclose which claims were processed with AI assistance.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars urged Congress to fund VSO accreditation and capacity-building and recommended the VA establish a clear appeals pathway when a veteran believes AI-assisted processing contributed to an incorrect decision.
Follow-up hearings are likely as the subcommittee continues its oversight of VA disability claims modernization and the broader question of how technology should reshape veterans' benefits administration.
The VA's AI-driven push to clear the PACT Act claims backlog is delivering results on paper, but the hearing exposed a troubling mismatch: the agency is processing more claims faster with fewer people, raising questions about whether speed and accuracy can coexist without adequate staffing and human oversight.
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