Question:

Hi I am caregiver to my mother who currently receives VA Aid and Attendance benefits and Housebound allowance. We live in California we have applied for Medi-cal and were approved. We also applied for IHSS and were approved with a share of cost. The share of cost is because Medi-cal is including the part of this VA aid & Attendance / housebound allowance as income. I don't think that IHSS is correct, how can I show them they are wrong? Thank you.

Jim's Reply:

Every means tested benefit that I'm aware of views all income as just that - income. After all it's real money that is coming in to the household. 
 

This is a common misunderstanding when we speak of any VA income because VA income is tax exempt. The confusion is understandable and frequent...a lot of folks write to me with similar misunderstandings. Tax exempt doesn't mean the money is exempt from other policies.
 

A couple of the ways this comes up is in divorce court where the divorcing vet thinks his disability pay is exempt from child support or alimony or when a veterans pension is reduced because of some small windfall the year before. They're always surprised to learn that all VA income is counted as what it is...incoming money.
 

In the end I'm afraid we aren't going to be able to show them the error of their ways. Good luck.