If a veteran is 100% disabled or has a disability rating with Totally Disabled Individual Unemployability (TDIU) or Permanent and Total (P&T), the veteran and dependents should automatically qualify for Social Security Disability and should have the Medicare/Medicaid costs waived.
Once a veteran is qualified as 100%, P&T, and/ or TDIU, the veteran would be awarded backpay and monthly payments from the VA as a total amount from both agencies-SSA and VA. The VA can submit their findings and award letters to the SSA and be reimbursed from SSA from then on, as to not inconvenience the veteran further.
The SSA will not count VA disability as income, nor will the VA, in order to lower these entitlements to veterans.
SSA will pay the maximum allowable entitlement to the veteran like the VA.
If a household has married veterans with shared dependents, the SSA will pay spouses and dependents for both spouses disabilities and not as a household. To clarify, Spouse 1 is entitled to SSDI for himself, spouse and dependent children. Spouse 2 is only entitled to SSDI for herself. The dependent children do not receive payment for both parents at this time and only Spouse 1 can receive payment for spouse 2, spouse 2 cannot receive for their spouse. . The VA pays spouse 1 for themselves, their spouse and dependent parents or children. The VA pays Spouse 2 for their spouse, dependent parents and children.
Veterans waste time, resources and money trying to get disability entitlements especially from SSA who notoriously must be taken to an ALJ for a decision before they will rule in a veterans favor. This process can take years and I can’t imagine the cost on the taxpayers. When the VA decides we qualify as completely disabled, totally, permanently and/or unemployable-there should be nothing left for the SSA to argue.
Mental health is a huge part of veteran disability claims for SSDI and SSDI still doesn’t take these claims as seriously as physical illness or injury. Veterans must find lawyers who can properly represent mental illness to SSDI ALJ’s for a 50% chance of a ruling in their favor. SSA wrongfully views invisible wounds as non-existent wounds and that discrimination has to end.
When dealing with SSA caseload backlog again, the VA’s decision will calculate the amounts for both SSDI and VA and pay the total amount forward to the veteran THEN submit the paperwork to the SSA for reimbursement. The VA will make one total monthly payment to the veteran.
It takes years of going through filing, denials, appeals, court and possibly repeating this process for veterans who have already been deemed disabled by the VA to fight the SSA for the same decision. Leave the SSA out of the decision making process and leave it to the VA, the agency that actually understands the ailments of veterans. The SSA doesn’t truly recognize our injuries, mental and physical as real or legitimate disabilities. Also, because many veterans are young, they are automatically denied. The SSA will automatically deny applications to those younger than retirement age.
We may consider including these payments as income so we can file taxes when this is our only source of income. We are not entitled to tax refunds, we don’t have taxable income because we are too disabled to work. Should we work, we lose our benefits. Many veterans in our situation cannot receive EIC or CTC because of this. However, the taxed amount should be entirely refundable or very low.