Attention WWII and Korean War Veterans – The VA will provide you financial assistance to help you or the widowed surviving spouse pay for long-term care.

This financial assistance provides needed money to help these elderly war-time veterans (and their widowed surviving spouse) receive in-home care or offset the costs of an assisted living facility.

And the best part, you don’t need to use official VA care or facilities. This financial assistance can be used to pay independent home care agencies and non-government run assisted living facilities. Many families also can get this VA financial assistance to pay a family member to provide the care.

This little-known veterans’ benefit is commonly called the “Aid and Attendance” benefit. It is officially called an “Improved Disability Pension Benefit with Aid and Attendance Entitlement” that provides a tax-free monthly amount up to $1,644 for a veteran or $1,949 for a veteran and spouse.

Widowed surviving spouses who have not re-married are eligible for this same benefit but by a different name. The official name of the surviving spouse benefit is “Improved Death Pension Benefit with Aid and Attendance Entitlement“. This benefit also provides a tax-free benefit equal to $1,057 monthly.

This “improved” VA disability pension benefit can be used to pay for in-home care, assisted living facility costs or nursing home care. In addition other qualified uses include medical expenses, prescription drugs, incontinence supplies and more.

Five Steps of Qualification
1. To qualify for time of service, the WWII or Korean veteran must have served at least 90 days of active duty with at least one day of service between December 7, 1941 and December 31, 1946 for WWII or between June 27, 1950 and January 31, 1955 for the Korean War.

It does not matter if the veteran’s active duty was stateside or overseas. Discharge from military service also must not have been under dishonorably conditions.

Note: Surviving spouses who remarried a non-eligible individual or whose marriage to the veteran ended in divorce are not eligible.

2. To qualify physically, the veteran (or eligible surviving spouse) must be age 65 or older (to not have to prove they can no longer work) and need help with basic activities of daily living tasks such as eating, dressing, grooming, proper hygiene, bathing or going to the bathroom.

Being blind or use of a wheelchair for mobility also physically qualifies the claimant. The claimant must also be no longer able to safely drive to be considered home-bound.

Physical qualifications should be documented by your private physician. You do not have to use or visit a VA doctor.

3. To qualify financially, the veteran (or eligible surviving spouse) must have limited assets (typically under $80,000) excluding the primary home and a single vehicle. Note: The claimant cannot be driving or they will be ineligible for the benefit.

The amount of benefit that the claimant can receive is based on a two-step calculation.

a. Add up all annual income from social security, retirement pensions, interest, dividends, annuities, etc.
b. Subtract from this income total the annual recurring out-of-pocket medical and prescription costs, the cost of private supplemental health care insurance, any long-term care insurance, and long-term care expenses from in-home care or an assisted living facility.

The resulting amount is called the “adjusted countable household income”. This amount is then compared to the maximum VA disability pension benefit. The difference is the benefit amount you will receive – paid in 12 equal payments.

4. The maximum VA disability pension benefit for 2009 is as follows:

Single or widowed veteran = $19,736 paid $1,644 monthly
Veteran with a dependent (typically spouse) = $23,396 paid $1,949 monthly
Un-remarried widowed surviving spouse = $12,681 paid $1,057 monthly

Let’s look at an example:

• Sam is an honorably discharged Korean War veteran who lost his wife 6 months ago.
• He suffers from dementia and can no longer drive or live alone. His family has moved him to the Great Home Assisted Living facility where many of his friends also now live.
• His adjusted countable household income is a negative $-1,000 (Social security and a small pension from his work at the Tool & Die Company less his qualified medical costs of assisted living, prescriptions and medical insurance premium).
• He has less than $10,000 in savings and after the reverse mortgage is paid off from the sale of his home he will net $50,000.

Since Sam’s qualified medical costs exceeds his income he qualifies for the maximum VA disability pension benefit, or $1,644 per month.
This means that Sam now has $644 in income each month after paying his qualified expenses instead of having to take $1,000 from savings each month for his care.

5. How to Apply

To learn more or to understand how to successfully apply for the Aid and Attendance benefit from the VA, visit www dot VeteransCareAdvisors dot com. The Aid and Attendance Handbook will walk you through the process and help you better understand the paper work, required documentation and what to expect during the claim processing.

Imagine being sick and out of work for a long period of time – not just a few days – but for several weeks or even months. And imagine not getting paid for that time spent away from work and how devastating that would be for you and your family.

Although most of us make sure to insure our car, house and lives – many of us don’t understand the importance of insuring against lack of income from our jobs. More than 80% of American workers don’t have any type of disability insurance. And almost 50% of home foreclosures in the United States are due to homeowners being out of work from long term medical issues.

Many employees assume that if they are sick, normal sick time pay will cover them and for a short term sickness, this is generally true. The problem potentially occurs when a worker is out sick for several weeks or months and has exhausted their sick time.

If you are out of work for a long time and have no more sick time, social security won’t necessarily cover the lost wages. Not everybody is approved for social security disability benefits – and it can also take several months to determine eligibility. Even if a person qualifies, the social security benefit may not be enough to make up for the loss in salary. And most people don’t have nearly enough in savings to cover a long absence from work.

That’s basically where disability insurance comes in. As the name suggests, this type of insurance is designed to replace a percentage of your income lost from not working for an extended period of time due to illness or disability. If your employer offers a benefits package every year, chances are that disability benefits are one of the options.

There are basically two different types of disability insurance – short term (STD) and long term (LTD) insurance. Short term disability insurance generally covers a period of absence from work of up to two years; long term disability generally covers a period from two years until retirement age. The average length of time missed from work due to disability is around two and a half years.

Individual disability insurance will generally cover between around 50 to 70% of your normal income if you are out of work. Insurers don’t like to cover the entire amount of a person’s income for fear they will be inclined not to go back to work!

You also generally have the option of paying more in premiums to have a higher percentage of your salary covered in the event of you being out of work. Most disability policies cover the insured until the age of 65, after which time normal social security disability benefits will cover you.

The amount of disability premiums vary and are determined according to several factors including a person’s age and sex. The amounts are also determined by what kind of work a person does and how risky it is – premiums for a construction worker are likely to be higher than for an office worker.

If you are in the market for disability insurance, try to take out what is known as a “non-cancelable” policy which locks in your benefits and rates. The insurance company can’t make changes to the policy unless requested by the policy holder.

So the next time the opportunity arises, consider disability insurance carefully. It may be something none of us like to think about – but it could make a big difference if the unthinkable happens.