AFP [1] has a report on today's hearing: 

US Senators on Wednesday grilled Veterans Affairs Administration (VA) officials over an email branding soldiers as "compensation-seekers" and urging staff to make fewer diagnoses of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

"Citing 'compensation-seeking veterans,' the email in question encourages VA practitioners to avoid diagnosing veterans with PTSD in order to save time and money," Senator Patty Murray told a hearing of the Senate Veterans' Affairs committee.

"This email is a sad reminder that this administration's attempt to hide the true cost of war has begun to affect the way VA employees view their work," Murray said.

Mental health specialist Norma Perez sent out the email in March to staff at the VA medical center in Texas, where she was a coordinator of the PTSD clinical team.

Senators at the hearing cited the email as saying: "Given that we are having more and more compensation-seeking veterans, I would like to see you refrain from giving a diagnosis of PTSD straight out."

Perez said the aim of her email was to urge staff to be "more sensitive to what the veterans are going through." She did not explain how the email was intended to achieve that.

Other VA officials praised the veterans' agency in their testimonies and highlighted the enormous workload that is weighing it down as claims for PTSD snowball.