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Huffington Post reports that they have obtained a leaked document from program specialist at the VA Health Eligibility Center in Atlanta, Scott Davis, that reveals a shocking statistic.

“As of April, there were 847,822 veterans listed as pending for enrollment in VA health care. Of those, 238,657 are now deceased, meaning they died after they applied for, but never got, health care.” says HuffPo.

This statistic comes from the 2015 “Analysis of Death Services,” a report on the accuracy of death records.

Walinda West, a VA spokeswoman, states that some of these are possibly from forms that were never completed, or that some may have been due to these vets switching to private insurance during the process. Some, she explained, may even have died years ago. West says that since the VA has no way to purge the list of dead applicants, these numbers may have been accruing since 1985 when the system was installed.

Davis, however, claims her points are inaccurate.

Incomplete applications wouldn’t be listed as pending, he says. Also, the health record system referred to by West are not pending applications for enrollment, and they have only required enrollment since 1998. He states that there was no formal application process prior to that time, as the chart he provided shows.

Davis has sent copies of his report to both the House and Senate committees that oversee VA healthcare, as well as to the White House, in hopes of action being taken.

“The best thing President Barack Obama can do is force the VA to allow veterans to upload their so-called DD-214 forms when they apply for health care,” says Davis. “The form is a lifelong document that shows a person’s military record. If veterans could use it to show their eligibility for health care, and if the VA assigned staff to review all of the pending applications, it would clear the logjam in the system,” he said.

Hailing from Austin, Texas, Brandon Morse has been writing about politics and culture across many websites for the last six years, with a heavy emphasis on anti-authoritarianism. Aside from writing articles, he is also known for voice acting and authoring scripts. He is an avid gamer, dog person, and has a bad habit of making vague references to things no one has heard about or seen. Follow him at @TheBrandonMorse on Twitter.

Click through the gallery below to read more from Morse in his previous EveryJoe columns:

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