Income-based, My Asset
by Wendy on August 6, 2009
in Health issues/care
We failed in our quest for government health insurance because we have “assets” (although it does look like AJ will get some coverage). If they had simply published the surprisingly low asset limit somewhere, anywhere, I could have saved myself a lot of time and the taxpayers some money (on processing our application and mailing us unhelpful papers).
So I paid our first private health insurance premium.
Then I threw up.
But hey, once we’ve used up all our assets on health care, which shouldn’t take long at this rate, we can reapply and maybe then they will, well, cover our (ahem) assets.
It’s definitely ridiculous that income limits aren’t available to the public until they’ve gone through the application process and been rejected. I’ve always thought that the government is worried about fraud, i.e. that people will manipulate their assets (hiding savings, etc.) in order to be found eligible. But who knows. Your plight of being forced to become completely destitute to receive help is exactly what happens to our elders when they need long-term care and are slightly over the income level needed to receive government assistance. They have to “spend down” to reduce themselves to abject poverty before they can get help. If there’s a spouse still at home, the effect on his/her life is devastating. Likewise, for young families such as yours, spending down to abject poverty in order to get assistance with health care has obvious devastating consequences to your lives now and in the future. The USA’s policies regarding its citizens (who are not wealthy) is simply uncivilized compared to the rest of the developed world.
There’s an outside chance that there’s another avenue to getting health care, at least for Aaron, plus a little extra montly income. It’s kind of convoluted to explain, but if Aaron’s medical situation meets the criteria for Social Security Disability, which I think it might — if he couldn’t get the intensive medical care he needs in order to work/train for work (i.e. seminary training), Social Security Disability payments allow him to go to school and work and still get his benefits, which include Medicare, if, after subtracting all the medical costs needed in order to be able to work/get training to work, he is not making enough money to be considered “substantially gainfully employed.” (Sorry for that run-on sentence offending your editing self, Wendy!)
The main question is whether he would be unable to work (and therefore disabled) if he had no medical help to allow him to work. And of course Marfan’s Syndrome, along with doctor’s reports, would have to meet Social Security standards for disability in the first place….it might be tricky to qualify. Another bureaucratic application nightmare.
I’m not explaining it very well, but it might be worth looking into Social Security Disability. The Medicare benefits with it wouldn’t cover you and AJ (and don’t kick in for Aaron until after he’s been on Social Security for 2 years), but with AJ already covered, that would only leave YOU without medical insurance. (But it would give your family monthly Social Security income, the amount which would be based on Aaron’s earnings so far in his life.)
I learned all this stuff in my years as a social worker helping people with developmental disabilities get benefits even if they were working in some capacity.
Lee Ann, I’m sure Aaron wouldn’t qualify for SS (his health problems thankfully aren’t that bad, just need monitoring), but you are awesome for caring! I’ll send you an email.