Veterans Day honors and thanks all the military personnel who have risked their lives in the service of protecting the United States. The day is marked by parades and community events throughout the country, and many places fly the flag at half-staff in remembrance and support of those who lost their lives on behalf of the country. Officially observed every Nov. 11, the holiday marks an important day in history – the 1918 armistice between Germany and the Allied nations and the end of the First World War.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there were 18.8 million civilian veterans in the United States last year. As this population begins to age, it is crucial to start planning for senior care, and more importantly, to understand what resources are available to ensure that veterans can live in a high-quality assisted living facility without struggling to pay for basic care costs.
In honor of Veterans Day, VeteranAid.org, a free A&A Pension resource and forum, and A Place for Mom, the nation’s largest senior living referral service, teamed up to raise awareness of a little-known benefit pension that helps vets pay for senior care costs.
The Veterans Aid & Attendance Pension
The Veterans Aid and Attendance (A&A) Pension is an allowance for veterans and their spouses to help pay for senior living and home care. The benefit provides financial support to lower income veterans and their spouses who require another person’s aid with daily living activities such as medication management and meal or care support. Both in-home care and senior housing are covered by the A&A Pension, which can provide up to $1,788 per month to a veteran, $1,149 per month to a surviving spouse, $2,120 per month to a couple, or $1,406 per month to a veteran with a sick spouse.
To qualify for the A&A Pension, a veteran (and his or her spouse, if applicable) must have $80,000 or less in total assets, excluding one home and one vehicle. Additionally, the veteran must have been discharged honorably and have served 90 consecutive days, at least one of which was during an approved period of war.
As it stands, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) only looks at a veteran’s current income, assets and expenses at the time of application. However, under newly proposed eligibility requirements, which are anticipated to be implemented in 2017, the VA will likely examine the past three years of an applicant’s financial history to determine eligibility for the pension.
Raising Awareness
APFM helps more than 200,000 families find the right senior care solution each year. Approximately 40 percent of these families come from a military background, and it is estimated that more than 70 percent are not aware of the A&A Pension. It’s anticipated that the proposed changes to the pension are anticipated to affect some qualifying veterans and prospective applicants as it will require additional financial thresholds to be eligible, potentially disqualifying candidates who were previously entitled to the benefit.
To help inform vets about the pension, VeteranAid.org and APFM created the “VA Benefits & Long-Term Care” eBook, which is now available for download. They also embarked on a media outreach campaign to raise awareness about the pension, garnering a slew of original coverage from media outlets across the country:
- The Senior List: Are You Eligible for the Veterans Aid and Attendance Pension? Proposed Amendments Could Make it Harder to Apply
- Long-Term Living Magazine: A Place For Mom joins effort to promote veterans’ LTC resources
- The Daily Ardmoreite: Changes will potentially affect many veterans’ ability to access special pension benefits
- Alamogordo Daily News: Veterans A & A Pension to undergo changes in 2017
- Courville Communities News: How to Honor Senior Veterans on Veterans Day
- The Daily American: Little-known veteran aid program could be changing
- McKnight’s Senior Living: Veterans A&A pension eligibility requirements expected to change
- HomeCare Magazine: Changes Coming to Veterans’ Care Pension Program
- KGAN-TV Cedar Rapids: Veterans miss out on little known benefit program
Communiqué PR is proud to support APFM and VeteranAid.org in their efforts to help the vet community find affordable care and are hopeful many families will learn about and benefit from the pension as a result of our efforts.
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