Lifestyle

A 100%-Rated Marine Veteran Gets All His Care Through the VA. Then He Warned Fellow Vets About Part B: “VA Health Care Does Not Count as Creditable Coverage”

By Erica Coleman · November 9, 2026

Bill, who calls himself the Salty Old Marine on YouTube, gets his health care through the VA. He is a Marine veteran with a service-connected rating, and he is open about it.

“I am rated 100% permanent and total,” he says in a June video on his channel (@TheSaltyOldMarine). He calls that full disclosure, because it shapes how viewers should weigh what he says. He is in VA priority group one, so his risk of losing VA care is about as low as it gets.

He is heading toward retirement and working through the same Part B decision himself. He says up front that he is not an attorney, a Medicare counselor or an insurance agent, and that viewers should verify everything against their own situation.

Then he gets to the point that he says trips most veterans up. “The VA health care is not health insurance,” he says. In his telling, the VA is a direct care system made up of doctors, hospitals and clinics that the VA owns and runs, plus community care it authorizes and pays for on its own terms.

You can watch his full video on YouTube.

The warning he most wants viewers to remember is about timing. When you turn 65, or when job-based coverage ends, there is a window to sign up for Part B without a penalty. Skip it and come back later, he says, and the penalty is not a one-time fee. It is added to your premium for every full 12 months “that you could have had Part B and you didn’t. And it stays for life. If you wait for 5 years, that is a permanent 50% surcharge forever.”

He explains that people who are still working and covered by an employer group health plan can usually delay Part B without a penalty. Then he describes what he calls the trap. “VA health care does not count as creditable coverage for Part B,” he says, and then he repeats it.

Part of the confusion, he says, is that the drug side works the other way. VA drug coverage is treated as creditable for Part D, so veterans assume the same protection covers Part B. In his words, it does not.

The official sources line up with the core of his warning. Medicare.gov says you will pay an extra 10% for each year you could have signed up for Part B but did not, unless you qualify for a Special Enrollment Period, and that for most people the penalty lasts a lifetime. Its example: wait two full years and the penalty is 20%, on top of a standard Part B premium of $202.90 a month in 2026.

The VA says much the same on its own page about VA health care and other insurance. It encourages veterans who already have VA care to sign up for Medicare as soon as they can. It says funding for VA care could change, and that if you delay Part B and need it later, you will pay a penalty that grows each year you wait and that you pay for the rest of your life.

Bill does not tell anyone what to choose. He says the math is different for a veteran rated at 30% or using VA care for non-service-connected conditions. His suggestion is to get free help, such as your State Health Insurance Assistance Program, which you can find at shiphelp.org, or an accredited veterans service officer. What you do with it, he says, is yours to decide.

This article is for general information and is not financial, legal or insurance advice. Medicare and VA rules can depend on your situation. This article was produced with the assistance of AI and fact-checked against the sources cited by LightWave Reports.