Maximize Your Benefits. Optimize Your Life.

March 9, 2026

My wife was in the hospital for a month after we found out that our pregnancy was officially classified as “severe high risk”. She was admitted for intensive 24/7 monitoring with every test you can think of performed on her. It ultimately ended with an emergency c-section at 28 weeks and 2 days. Our daughter is still in the NICU (day 91 as of this post) and will likely be there for another 2-4 weeks, at least.

The bills started coming in and the grand total was $203,000 for my wife's stay and delivery. The NICU bills are still being processed, but we're looking at well north of $2.5 million. All told, our family's medical bills will likely land somewhere around $3 million.

Our total out-of-pocket? $3,000.

That's not a typo. That's CHAMPVA.

CHAMPVA is healthcare coverage for the dependents of 100% Permanent & Total (P&T) veterans. Here's what it looks like:

That last number is the one that matters. It doesn't matter if the bill is $10,000 or $10 million, your family will never pay more than $3,000 in a calendar year. Emergency surgery. Cancer. NICU. Doesn't matter.

The average American family pays about $10,850 a year in health insurance premiums and out-of-pocket costs. My family pays up to $3,000. More often, much less.

But CHAMPVA is just one piece of being 100% P&T. I wanted to know: what is it actually worth in total across everything?

So I built a tool to find out.

I just launched the What Is 100% P&T Actually Worth? calculator — a free tool that shows you the personalized lifetime dollar value of being rated 100% Permanent & Total by the VA.

You plug in your rating, age, state, family situation, and finances. It calculates everything:

It’s hard to quantify all of these things, but I did my best by trying to find as close to 1:1 ratios as I could when comparing to the civilian world. Many people just see the monetary value of the monthly tax-free disability compensation checks, but they aren’t factoring in everything else that comes along with the benefits that you receive. The healthcare alone should make you want to file your claims, if not for you, for your family. You might not think you need CHAMPVA, you think that since you have a civilian job with company insurance that you don’t need it; WRONG. CHAMPVA works as a secondary insurance that will help cover things for when your civilian insurance inevitably won’t cover.

I’m not gonna sit here and force you to file your claims, all I’m doing is trying to show you what you’re missing out on and what Congress already pays for - it’s just sitting there waiting for you to take it. And let’s just drop the whole “I don’t wanna take it from someone else” or my favorite “I just don’t think I deserve it”. My brother in Christ, do you think the government “deserves” it more? The money is already allocated, do you really trust the government to use the money more wisely than you?

Plug in your information below yourself and see what is waiting for you.

Here's what surprised me the most when I was building this.

For a 33-year-old married veteran with one child in Florida, 100% P&T benefits are worth over $3.1 million over 30 years. Turn on COLA adjustments - the automatic 2.6% annual raises that happen every year - and it's just over $4 million.

But the number that really reframes things is the civilian equivalent salary. When you account for the fact that VA compensation is completely tax-free - no federal, no state, no local income tax - and you add in the value of CHAMPVA, dental, property tax exemptions, and everything else, a civilian would need to earn roughly $118,000 a year to match what 100% P&T gives you.

Most veterans think of their VA comp as ~$4,300 a month. They don't think of it as a six-figure salary. That's a mistake. God forbid that a catastrophe happens such as a medical emergency or you’re laid off from work, you’re still doing better than the average person. Yes, this is all the trade-off you made for not having a healthy back/knees/shoulders, constant migraines, a ringing in your ears that never goes away, memories that keep you up at night - but all said and done the benefits you have are as close as possible to allowing you to be set up to deal with those things. Will the VA make it as difficult as possible for you to receive your benefits? Maybe. Does that mean that they aren’t there? Absolutely not.

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Since this is the benefit that personally saved my family from both financial ruin and quite possibly my own heart attack that the extra financial stress of all of this would’ve caused, let me show you what it looks like across different medical scenarios. These numbers are in the tool:

Civilian costs are national averages based on data from the KFF Employer Health Benefits Survey, FAIR Health consumer cost data, and published hospital charge reports. Your actual costs may vary by region and provider — but the CHAMPVA cap doesn't.

The table illustrates the significant financial savings provided by CHAMPVA for various medical scenarios, highlighting the reduced out-of-pocket costs for beneficiaries compared to typical civilian expenses. I hope that laying it out like this makes it very clear how powerful this benefit is. You don’t actually know how powerful it is until you’re in a situation where you need it. There’s no going back and forth with your insurer pleading for them to cover your health bills even though you pay them every month to cover you, there’s no fighting with representatives, none of that.

Regardless of how catastrophic the scenario, your family's max out-of-pocket is $3,000/year. That's it. That's the ceiling.

And unlike most civilian insurance, CHAMPVA has no network restrictions. Any willing provider will accept you as a patient (rule of thumb when looking for a new provider is to ask to talk to their billing department, many times the receptionists won’t know what CHAMPVA is, but billing will. This doesn’t apply to ER’s, they’ll cover things regardless). No referrals needed for most care. Meds by Mail for $0. Preventive care at $0 cost share.

The tool also has a custom input — you can enter any dollar amount and see exactly what you'd pay under CHAMPVA vs. what a civilian would pay. It's eye-opening. Spoiler alert: no matter how high the medical bill is, you’ll be saving everything from that bill’s total minus $3,000 because that’s the highest your dependents will have to pay.

When I was building this tool, I went deep. I had a small group of veterans beta testing it and they kept telling me about benefits I hadn't included. Here are a few that surprised me — and surprised them:

Federal student loan forgiveness. If you're 100% P&T, 100% of your federal student loans are forgiven through Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge. The Department of Education automatically identifies eligible veterans. It includes Parent PLUS loans. And it's tax-free. If you have $30,000 in student loans, that's $30,000 gone. You don't even have to apply (it’s done automatically if their internal systems find that you’re 100% P&T with federal student loans — though you can speed it up at studentaid.gov.

(Note: I spoke about this intensely with my first issue that you can read here)

ABLE accounts. Tax-free savings accounts where you can contribute up to $18,000 a year, the money grows tax-free, withdrawals for qualified disability expenses are tax-free, and — here's the big one — the balance doesn't count against VA pension or SSI asset limits. Every state has one. Many are run through Fidelity. Most veterans have never heard of them.

VA Life Insurance (VALife). Up to $40,000 in guaranteed-issue whole life insurance. No health exam. No health questions. Premiums based on age, not health. If your service-connected disabilities make you uninsurable on the civilian market — and for many veterans, they do — this is a lifeline.

Service dog veterinary care. The VA provides service dogs for qualifying veterans and covers all veterinary care, equipment, and training. For free.

These are all in the tool, along with a dozen more. Each one has a "Learn more" link to the official source if you want to dig deeper.

I've talked to a lot of veterans about disability. And the most common response isn't "how do I file?" It's some version of "I don't think I deserve it." This is the most important thing that I think I should address when discussing this edition and this tool, it is meant to fully elaborate to you what you’re missing out on when you don’t file. It’s meant to dissuade the institutionalizing that you may have from being in the military. And quite frankly, I’m trying to show you that if you don’t want to file for yourself, file for your family. The benefits that you receive directly affects them, and even if you never use them; it’s better to have them and not need them, then need them and not have them.

So let me address that directly.

"Others had it worse than me."

Disability compensation isn't about who had it worst. It's earned compensation for damage done to your body during service. A bad knee from years of ruck marches is just as valid as a combat injury. If the military broke it, the VA owes you for it. That's the deal.

"I don't want to take money from veterans who need it more."

This is the one I hear the most, and it's the one that frustrates me the most — because it's based on a misunderstanding.

VA disability compensation is mandatory spending. Like Social Security. Congress is required by law to fund every single approved claim. There is no cap. There is no limited pool. There is no "running out." Your claim does not reduce anyone else's benefits. Not by a single dollar. No veteran has ever been denied compensation because the money wasn't there. It's a legal entitlement.

"The VA will just deny me."

The VA approves the majority of claims. The most commonly rated conditions — tinnitus, hearing loss, back conditions, knee injuries, PTSD, sleep apnea, migraines — affect millions of veterans. You don't need a lawyer. You don't need to pay anyone. A free accredited VSO (Veterans Service Organization) will handle the paperwork, gather evidence, and represent you. The tool has a direct link to find one near you.

Here's the part that should make you uncomfortable.

If you're currently at 50% and should be at 100% P&T, you're leaving approximately $2,836 per month on the table. That's $34,032 per year. Every year you wait.

And that's just the compensation difference. It doesn't include CHAMPVA, property tax exemptions, Chapter 35 education benefits, dental, or any of the other benefits that only unlock at 100% P&T.

The tool has a live ticker that shows you this in real time if you input that you’re under 100% P&T. Every second you're on the page, you watch the money accumulate. It's uncomfortable on purpose.

Don't take my word for any of this. Plug in your numbers:

Enter your rating, your state, your family situation, and your finances. The tool does the rest — including state-specific benefits that most veterans don't even know they have.

If you know a veteran who hasn't filed, or stopped at a low rating, send them this tool. It might be the most expensive thing they've never looked at.

What number surprised you the most? Hit reply and tell me. I read every response.

Talk soon