A new disclosure by the U.S. Senate Veterans Affairs Committee should be eye-opening for disabled veterans wondering why there are such wide differences between the payments they receive and what others are receiving.

According to the committee, the system for assessing claims is outdated - claims examiners are using 60-year-old guidelines to assess ailments - and 65 percent of claim assessors who were surveyed said they did not have enough staff to "ensure timely and quality service."

That situation reflects poorly on the debt of gratitude this country owes its veterans. Hopefully, the committee will exercise clout in helping to rectify the problem, through reorganization of the claims process and updating guidelines to reflect the most up-to-date medical thinking.

It's hard to fathom that guidelines currently in use don't include some nonphysical conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder that are now generally recognized in the medical community. The Department of Veterans Affairs confirms that.

"When you got through some of the bureaucratic gobbledygook, the report did confirm some of our worst fears," said Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., a member of the Senate committee.

Obama was referring to a report prepared by the Veterans Affairs Department's inspector general as part of an examination of the veterans benefits situation.

The benefits and claims issue is a matter that could have been addressed long ago, under a number of presidents, but wasn't. Veterans' groups also can be faulted for failing to lobby for a more-up-to-date, more-efficient system.

In response to the committee's disclosure, Daniel L. Cooper, the VA undersecretary for benefits, said veterans are welcome to have their claims re-examined, but cautioned that the larger the number of reviews sought, the longer it will take to complete all of them.

Veterans have cause for anger over what has evolved and what might take years to fix.