Jim,

Maybe this is already known. I have Medicare but have used VA for the most part. My wife has been on AARPs Medicare Complete Plus, United Healthcare’s Medicare Advantage program that has no additional monthly charge but is kind of like an HMO.

She is pretty happy with it so since the Medicare re-enrollment period has just started I called United to switch my Medicare to their Advantage program. They were good enough to check and tell me that if I signed up for their Medicare Advantage program I would likely lose my VA coverage. Maybe this is well known but I thought I would share the information.

Reply:

That information is not correct. The Veterans Health Administration will not discontinue your health care benefits because of other insurance coverage.

VA will continually ask you if you have other insurance coverage. This should happen each time you check in for any VA health services. Once they have the information they will bill the civilian insurance company for any provided services that aren't service connected. This also applies to Medicare even though Medicare does not pay VA any money in the exchange.

The VA disability compensation benefits program is complex. It doesn't easily compare to anything else and when civilians who are unfamiliar with the details advise veterans they often get it wrong.

Disability compensation benefits are awarded based on the service connected disabling condition and nothing else. Income is not a consideration. One of those benefits is health care. Like income, whether or not you have access to other health care is not a consideration in the award of benefits. If your service connected disabling condition makes you eligible for health care, any other health care coverage you may have isn't relevant.