March 20, 2015

The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) continues their effort to ease the administrative requirements that saddle veterans attempting to receive VA benefits and services.

This week VA Secretary Robert McDonald announced the VA is changing the way it determines eligibility for health care.

The VA no longer requires veterans to disclose their net worth. Net worth is determined by combining a veteran’s income and assets. Prior to this decision, a veteran’s net worth was used to determine eligibility for health care and cost of copays.

In yesterday’s announcement, the VA will now consider a veteran’s gross household income and deductible expenses as factors for determining health care eligibility and cost responsibility.

The elimination of the net worth criteria means lower income, non-service connected veterans will pay less money out of pocket for care.

MOAA is encouraged by the announcement. “According to the VA, 190,000 more veterans will see their health care costs reduced over the next five years because of these rule changes,” said MOAA Deputy Director for Government Relations, Cdr. René Campos, USN (Ret).

Last March, the VA eliminated annual requirements for veterans to report financial information. The VA will now verify veteran income automatically through Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration records.

This is good news for the VA as it works hard to rebuild trust with veterans—and great news for veterans because it is one less piece of information they have to remember to provide the VA.