Little Known VA Benefit

VA Provides Underused Monthly Pension Benefit While Medicaid Receives Increased Attention 07/01/09. Medicaid receives increased attention while an underused, special monthly pension benefit called Aid and Attendance can help veterans, and spouses, with assisted living.

Newsday reports that the "pension benefit may be available to wartime veterans and surviving spouses who have in-home care or who live in nursing homes or assisted-living facilities" and that "eligible veterans need not have served overseas or in combat; they must have served during the period of a war: World War II, Dec. 7, 1941-Dec. 31, 1946; Korea, June 27, 1950-Jan. 31, 1955; Vietnam, Aug. 5, 1964-May 7, 1975; Persian Gulf War, Aug. 2, 1990 to a date not yet determined." A 2006 press release about the program "got little notice, perhaps because Veterans Affairs wanted to save money... [but that] as word of the benefit got around, elder law firms throughout the country became active in pursuing the benefit for clients." The benefit is meant for veterans and surviving spouses with unreimbursed medical expenses, such as assisted-living charges that are not supported by Medicaid. The Philadelphia Inquirer also picked up the feature (Friedman, 6/27). KaiserHealthNews