Is one of the symptoms of chronic disease being poor?

[NightWatcher]

If you are sick enough to get Social Security Disability and they approve you as soon as you apply (best case scenario), you still have to wait 6 months before they'll start to pay you. So for those first 5 months when you are too sick to work, you don't get any help.

If you are so sick that you get disability, you'll get assistance that is less than what you would make if you had a part time minimum wage (federal standard) job.

If you get disability assistance, after two years, you will be signed up for Medicare. I don't know why they make you wait for 24 after you have received assistance before you can get on Medicare. Maybe it's a survival thing and they want to thin the rolls before they just give out help for the sick.

Personal note: I'm 18 months into my 24 month wait for Medicare and will easily spend 30% of my "benefit" on medical expenses. And I'm considered "well" with no active flare up or hospital stays. As soon as I need to see a specialist it will jump to 60-75% of my money going to medical expenses. For the first 6 months (while I waited for the "benefits" to kick in after being approved for disability) after I was diagnosed and got out of the hospital, I was paying 150-200% of what my benefits would eventually be to medical costs.

If being sick isn't bad enough, you also get to be chronically poor it would appear.

(Will x-post in GD later to see what people not in this boat have to say about it)

[hedgehog]

1. It's worse than that - once you're on a poverty level Social Security income,

you don't dare try to work when you are not in a flare because then you will have to re-start the entire process when you do flare again!

[NightWatcher]

2. that's what was suggested to me by my rheumy yesterday because I'm not feeling horrible

I am dumping that doctor immediately because if I ever need a doctor to advocate for me, I believe that she'd throw me under the bus.

She said that I've felt better for a few months so I should get back to work. I told her that I used to work on ships at sea and could not perform my job. She told me to get a desk job. I havent worked for 2 years and before that I worked in the field, who is going to give me some random "desk job"? I'm not qualified for any of that.

Plus who is going to hire someone who is liable at any moment to flare up and need another ten days in the hospital? I'm trying every trick in the book (legally) to get in to Mayo, but even if I don't I've got to get a dr who doesnt think I need to be working.

My first flare nearly broke us, I'm sure that another one would without aid.

[WCLinolVir]

5. Doctor also ignored reality of people not hiring disabled.

A lot of companies are not hiring someone with a medical claim. They see you as a liability for a potential workers' comp claim.

[fadedrose]

3. My medicare and supplemental pay a lot

but the charges are so damned high that it still leaves huge sums for me to pay.

Ecare (GE) helps; it gives you 6 months to pay a bill of $700 or less without interest, and a year if it's over that. What sucks is that if you're paying that bill and you make new bills . . . then they charge you interest. I just used it for my dentist bill..

My doctor sent a bill for several hundred owed after insurances paid their share, and it had a large banner on the bill that said I have a year to pay the balance with no interest....

Some doctors don't offer this courtesy

[WCLinolVir]

4. As another has pointed out, can't work even if you do feel well.

And if I do feel well, it will only be a while till I really don't.
I have an autoimmune disease. It is like a bank account and sometimes I have a lot that I can draw from and sometimes I'm flat out. But even when I feel better, I should not push myself, unless I want to be sicker.
I truly wish they would stop the punitive aspect of denying us any additional income, should we feel able to do so. It just adds to our misery, and reduces our contribution to life. I am surprised that you did not have to appeal your SSD as I did.
The medical bills are hard to cope with. I treat only what is life threatening. Put your property in an LLC. If you can.

[pertilotte]

6. Being poor

I think that there is plenty of statistical information that poverty is the cause, not the effect, of chronic diseases. That, in fact, relentless poverty leads to death.