Eight months have passed since the 21st Century Veterans Benefits Delivery Act was introduced. On the eve of Veterans Day this year, the bill has yet to pass through committee, let alone make it to the floor for a vote. And yet the time that’s passed since March is still shorter than how long Pennsylvania veterans wait on average for their disability claim to process.

On Nov. 10, U.S. Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) called for the newly elected Congress to collaborate on passing the Veterans Benefits Delivery Act to reduce the backlog on disability claims. The bill aims to improve access to information and assistance so that veterans can file correctly the first time while easing the process of filing and holding regional offices and all government agencies accountable for efficiency.

“We can’t say that we’re honoring their sacrifice and we’re paying tribute to them and thanking them just by going to parades,” Casey said. “That’s not enough if you’re an elected official. You have to do more than just go to events on Veterans Day. We need Veterans Day to be more of a 365-day focus.”

In states like Pennsylvania, a veteran’s average wait for a disability claim is 266 days — lower than the 300-day levels of the past, but still higher than the civilian wait time. Civilians face a Social Security Administration backlog of more than 600,000 claims with an average processing time around 107 days.

Even without the Benefits Delivery Act, the number of veterans waiting more than 125 days for their claims has been falling. At its peak in March 2013, the backlog of veterans who had been waiting more than 125 days for disability or pensions claims topped 611,000. Now the backlog is down to 240,000 claims. Still, that’s a ways from the Obama administration’s goal for the backlog to be eliminated entirely by 2015.

The administration has requested more than $138 million to help streamline the processing system and increase the accuracy of claims, from 91 percent this past summer to 98 percent by next year.