Remove content from tables on Veterans Pension rates page

[RLHecht]

Issue Description

As part of our ongoing effort to remove unneeded tables from VA.gov for accessibility reasons, we need to rework the content on the VA pension rates for Veterans page.

Once we take the content out of the current rates page, we should apply the same changes to the past rates pages in Drupal.

Tasks

• [x] Rework content to remove from table
• [ ] Review (Laura)

Acceptance Criteria

• [ ] Content is ready for OCTO-DE review

  
  ### Associated EPIC

• [ ] https://github.com/department-of-veterans-affairs/va.gov-team/issues/30813

[katherine-fung]

Hi @laurwill,

I started working on this page as we discussed. http://preview-prod.vfs.va.gov/preview?nodeId=591

Notes for you:

1. On the live page, each MAPR table (Veterans with no dependents, Veterans with at least 1 dependent, 2 Veterans who are married to each other) comes with notes about how much money in medical expenses you can deduct from your annual income (which is then used to calculate your pension payment).

Should we list these deductible amounts in a separate section from MAPR amounts? I will draft an example and schedule a Zoom to show you what I mean.

2. I'm trying to make the explanation of deductible medical expenses more clear.

Current sentence: If you have medical expenses, you may deduct only the amount that’s above 5% of your MAPR amount ($737 for a Veteran with 1 dependent).

Me trying to explain it:

H4: Deductible expenses If you have medical expenses, you may deduct from your annual income any portion of your medical expenses that exceeds 5% of your MAPR amount.

Multiply your MAPR amount by .05 to get 5% of your MAPR. Subtract this amount from your medical expenses. The result is how much you may deduct from your annual income.

Example: Bob is a Veteran with no dependents and he doesn't qualify for Housebound or Aid and Attendance benefits. 5% of his MAPR is $737.65. Bob has $10,000 in annual medical expenses. He subtracts 5% of his MAPR amount from his annual medical expenses. This amount is $9,262.35. He can deduct $9,262.25 from his annual income.

3. Under the MAPR amounts H2, the live page says: Date of cost-of-living increase: December 1, 2021 Increase factor: 5.9% Standard Medicare deduction: Actual amount will be determined by SSA based on individual income.

I changed this copy to say: "Effective December 1, 2021" I deleted the "increase factor" because the MAPR amounts reflect the increase, and the whole amounts are more relevant to Veterans than the % increase. I left the line about the Medicare deduction because I couldn't figure out what that actually means. I figure it has to do with deductible medical expenses, but I didn't want to mess with it without knowing what it exactly it means, to see if we should re-word it.

Questions for the SME:

1. For the MAPR amounts for "2 Veterans who are married to each other" -- are the amounts listed for each Veteran, or both Veterans?

How much will "2 Veterans who are married to each other" get if they have 1 dependent? There is a note that provides an added amount for more than 1 dependent, but the page doesn't specify how much 2 Veterans who are married to each other get if they have only 1 dependent.

2. The MAPR tables for Veterans with dependents each have a note that says "If you have a child who works, you may exclude their wages up to -----." What are Veterans excluding their child's wages from?

[If Veterans should exclude their child's wages from "annual income," FYI the current live information about calculating annual income doesn't say anything about needing to include children's wages. ]

[katherine-fung]

@laurwill - I updated this page per our discussion today:

http://preview-prod.vfs.va.gov/preview?nodeId=591

• For the Bob example, I ended up taking the numbers out of running text and formatting them like the other example that's already on the page. I'm not sure if it works.

• I also added H4s to the "For 2 Veterans who are married to each other" to break up the long list.

Also making a note here of the additional questions we want to ask Beth or the stakeholder:

1. Is there a reason the live page states the cost of living increase %?
2. Does it make sense to take out the links for "Read more about how we define 'assets'" and "Read more about how we define 'income'"? These links go to the text of legislation, which is hard to decode.

[katherine-fung]

Hi @laurwill, I did some more digging re: the Medicare deduction and "child's wages" that the current page mentions.

There are other types of income and expenses that you can subtract that the live page doesn't mention -- including Medicare premiums, I believe? : https://helpdesk.vetsfirst.org/index.php?pg=kb.page&id=2799

re: child's wages, there's some legislation that discusses "How a child's net worth affects a veteran's or surviving spouse's pension entitlement." I think a SME should confirm, but it seems like a dependent's child income does count towards the Veteran or surviving spouse's income when claiming pension (we still need to confirm that is what the wage exclusion is referring to). The legislation says:

(i) “Dependent child” refers to a child for whom a veteran or a surviving spouse is entitled to an increased maximum annual pension rate. ... "(4) Dependent child annual income calculation. VA will calculate a dependent child's annual income under § 3.271, and will include the annual income of the child as well as the annual income of the veteran or surviving spouse that would be included if VA were calculating a pension entitlement rate for the veteran or surviving spouse."

[katherine-fung]

Just noting this is in a VA word doc about how to calculate medical expenses for the purposes of paying VA pension: https://www.benefits.va.gov/WARMS/docs/admin21/m21_1/mr/part5/subptiii/ch01/pt05_sp03_ch01_secG.doc

"Important: It is rarely necessary to go through the process outlined in the example above. If the Veterans Service Representative (VSR) enters gross medical expenses in the medical expense field on the Benefits Delivery Network (BDN) 306 screen, the system performs the necessary calculations."

[katherine-fung]

Hi @laurwill! I'm posting this page back for your review:

http://preview-prod.vfs.va.gov/preview?nodeId=591

Notes:

• In the first section, the second bullet that bolds "Your MAPR amount":

I changed a passive instance about MAPR rates to "MAPR amounts change each year with cost-of-living increases."

I added a jump link to the MAPR amount section here. It previously said something like, find your MAPR amount in the table below. I debated not adding the link, in case we want people to read through the other sections to understand how this all works. But it's a lot of info to force people to wade through.

• In the first section, I also added a note: "The information on this page is for your reference. You don't need to calculate your pension rate in order to get payments. We'll do that for you when you apply for pension benefits."

• I had previously asked about how a dependent child's income fits into all of this (since the page notes that some of their income is excluded from the calculations). It turns out the very first section of the page does mention that a child's income counts towards the total income. "... any income your dependents receive."

In the "How we define 'annual income'" section, I added the word "dependents" to the first sentence for clarity/to echo the first section.

• We had previously talked about taking out the "Read more about how we define..." links on this page. I still think we should do it because the linked pages are hard to understand. The assets link is also unnecessary because we already have that information on the page. But I left them there for now in light of not wanting to go down a rabbit hole and change too much/not knowing what the stakeholder thinks. (I looked for a better link to sub in for the income link, but I couldn't find one from an "official" source).

If we do keep these links, just noting that they're an external source so we'd have to adjust the link text.

• "Expenses we subtract from your income" section - noting that there are other amounts of money (not necessarily expenses, but types of income) that VA excludes from income, but we're not listing them here for the sake of staying within the scope of the ticket.

• As we discussed, I added clarifying info about unreimbursed medical expenses to this section.

I also added a jump link to MAPR rates here. I added a note to clarify which MAPR rate the 5% is based on. I don't love the style of the example here, but I based it on the other example that was already on the page. I debated using running text/full sentences, but I don't think it's any more clear either way.

• "Find your Maximum Annual Pension Rate (MAPR) amount" section - the 5% of your MAPR amount doesn't change with your level of benefits, so that simplified things! Beth and I talked about using an accordion approach here to break up the chunky text.

We'll need to run the "Effective" date change by a stakeholder. And ask if there's a reason the live page states the rate increase.

I didn't change the Medicare language, again because of not wanting to go down a rabbit hole. But should we ask the stakeholder what this means, when we figure out who to talk to?

I added an H3 "Amounts we don't count as your income" to each group to put the medical expense and child's wages info together.

In keeping with VA style, I made the H2 for past rates "Past rates" and removed the first sentence.

I think we should remove the "Full Title 38 regulations" section since it's not super useful and we don't normally link to legislation on pages, but I'm not sure if we should mess with it for this ticket.

[RLHecht]

As discussed in standup, we are going to move this to the backlog until we publish the 2023 rates. Once those are live, we can send the non-table version of the page to stakeholders for their review and approval.

[katherine-fung]

Just noting that I reverted to the table to post the 2023 rates.

[katherine-fung]

Now that we've published 2023 rates, I reverted back to the draft that removed the tables, and updated the rates there. Just FYI whoever copy edits the page down the line should check the numbers too.

[RLHecht]

Moving this work to backlog and will turn back to it in February once the other education pages are finished.

[katherine-fung]

Hi @laurwill, this page is ready for your review when you have a chance to look at it:

http://preview-prod.vfs.va.gov/preview?nodeId=591

[coforma-terry]

Tagging @ohgreatkate for visibile