VA Math, etal . . .

Unless you are a US military veteran, you would not be concerned with this essay.  On the other hand it may be interesting to you for a sort of common interest perspective.  It comes under the things that apply to us kind of issue.  It does not apply to everyone, only to a specific person who so qualifies.

To qualify for Veterans Administration benefits one has to have served for some period of time in the military and receive a valid DD Form 214 ~ that is an Honorable Discharge from a US military service.  In my case the service is the USAF.

You would be sort of surprised at just how much a military career uses up you physical body.  It is generally a great deal depending on how long and what kind of exposure you have occur to you.  In my case it is 26 years and 21 days of service.  It encompasses two tours in a war zone (and the decorations and ribbons that go with that) and total of almost seven years of duty outside the United States of America.

I have no regrets but I am now bouncing along with all these hurts and pains and diseases that I live with.  And I do receive compensation from the military retirement and the VA for those issues.  I also earned my Social Security as all military personnel are required to pay into the SSN system (that was done because (a) the military can not complain and (b) they needed the additional base of contributing participants.  Sounds a little like Obamacare, doesn't it.  Makes you think about where Obamacare financing ideas originated.)

The way the VA does its calculations for disabilities dates from the American Civil War.  So the concept is not new and has survive years of analysis and change yet essentially remains the same.  Only the numbers seem to change.

The VA says all personnel are 100% or "whole men."  So if they award a Service Connected (SC) disability of say 30% it is subtracted from the base of the whole man or 100%.  That leaves you as 70% of a whole man.  If you get another SC of lets say 20% (and here is where VA math gets hokie), they then calculate 70% remaining times 20%.  And that would be now 14% and you subtract that from the 70% and you would get a total disability of 44%.  No it is not 30% plus 20%.  So now you are introduced to the whole man concept.  The nice thing that goes with that is the VA only has total ratings in whole 10% ranges, like 30% or 80%, etc.  So a rating of 44% rounds off to the nearest 10% increment or 40%.

Should you get lets say another SC at 10%, then the math would be 44% minus 100% which is 56% remaining of the whole man times 10% or 5.6%.  Then you subtract the 5.6% from the 56% and that would be 50.4% or rounded off to the nearest 10% increment is 50%.  You will note that this is a declining rate kind of calculation, or a lot of small ratings return small total rating increases keeps the overall number down a bit.  That means you have have either larger ratings for SC or a lot of small ratings to make the whole man number decline.  Getting to the 100% total disability is a big deal and usually that person has something extremely serious going, like a leg missing or an arm missing and so on.  A loss of an organ (an arm for instance) is usually 60%.  If you are missing both, well you can see that it gets to 100% PDQ.

Compensation is base on tables that are stacked at 10% increments and take in consideration of whether one is married and has young children (less than 18 years of age).  One has to get his or her numbers and go to the table to figure out what the compensation will be.  The good news is the compensation is totally tax free!

My VA file is running close to 4 inches thick now days.  That includes medical histories during my service as well as after my service.  Pretty soon with Obamacare a touch of button will call up all that data.  No secrets no more!  VA care and TRICARE and Medicare are all exempt from Obamacare.  So if you have TRICARE, you do not need to have Obamacare and so on.  Since we are over 65 we have Medicare as a primary and TRICARE as a secondary medical coverage.  Doctors love us not because we pay well, but because we pay right now, cash money so to speak.  They make one filing and it is taken care of.

Of course Obama wants to raise the rates for Medicare and TRICARE.  But that is not gonna happen very quickly.  Congress controls the purse and it is not about to dis the veterans and active duty troops.  It will be a while before any big issues will hit us and now that Congress is totally Republican he'll not get much change.

VA care for SC is free.  Other stuff is not.  But if your total disability rating is above 50% and mine is, then you can get free care there.  But I would rather pay a bit and get good civilian care.  If things get too tough, then maybe we would consider VA care and yes, my spouse would get the same coverage due to my disability ratings.

So you ask what is my total rating.  It is 93.48% rounded off to 90% total disability.  Can it change and the answer is yes, sometimes goes up and sometimes goes down.  But after a period of time they can not change the ratings.  I think the number is 10 years or maybe 20 years.  So far no one has challenged me on my ratings.