Clarity Rose

[wolf]

French for fixed price ... like in a fancy restaurant where you pay $150 and you can have anything off the menu that you want ...

(It's the rich people's version of Old Country Buffet)

[Elspode]

Mari, outstanding work. Your friend is lucky to have you in her life. I am fully in tune with what you say here.

My son is losing his Medicaid because he earns a whopping $450.00 per month on top of his $585.00 SSDI. It goes without saying that he gets no SSI because of it.

It is a very bad time in our country to be old, sick or disabled and without substantial means. We're right on the edge of taking them all blindfolded into the desert and leaving them.

[busterb]

Originally Posted by Elspode

It is a very bad time in our country to be old, sick or disabled and without substantial means. We're right on the edge of taking them all blindfolded into the desert and leaving them.

How well I know! W/o the VA I'd really be in a bind. Vote for who? Yeah you know what party the gov of MS. belongs to.

[Brett's Honey]

What chaps my ass the most is the same as I've read in this thread - I know a woman who is getting every humanly possible benefit out of our tax money, she's never worked a day in her life, she had 8 kids, her oldest daughter is 20 and just had her third child.....(cycle continues...) Then there's the friend who was my boss at a local warehouse years ago, before she was diagnosed with MS and became disabled, it took her two years of being in a wheelchair, living in a cheap upstairs apartment before she qualified for SSI, and now that check just covers her rent.....

Originally Posted by Elspode

My son is losing his Medicaid because he earns a whopping $450.00 per month on top of his $585.00 SSDI. It goes without saying that he gets no SSI because of it.

This has got to be one of the more insane parts of a truely insane system. People who have WORKED and CONTRIBUTED to the system get SSDI which disqualifies them from getting Medicaid. Your son gets $6.00 more than he would on SSI - the plan for those who became disabled without paying into the system. People on SSI automatically get Medicaid, though. So people who worked actually often get a far smaller disability benefit total than those who did not. What a rip off for those who paid taxes and then became disabled at some point! Yeah, it sure pays to be a working tax payer here in the US - if you ever get disabled Uncle Sam will throw you to the wolves, while folks like the Meth Queen I spoke of automatically get medicaid benefits!

Then the amount you are allowed to earn on SSDI is $200 across the board - it doesn't matter if you only get $585.00 like your son or a $1000.00. If you are on SSI and earn more than $25/month that is deducted from your $579.00, so folks on SSI are given no incentive to try to rehabilitate themselves and go back to work.

I am on the Ticket to Work program and some people have actually told me that I shouldn't risk it because if I don't rehabilitate myself to the point where I can work full time again at a job that offers health insurance, I could end up worse off than if I would have just stuck to drawing my $645/month SSDI and doing nothing. Your son is a prime example of this.

My best bet would be to go out and have 4 illegitimate children. In that scenario, I'd be set for life with housing, medical care food stamps and a cash benefit. Would anyone like to tell me where THAT'S at?

Originally Posted by Elspode

It is a very bad time in our country to be old, sick or disabled and without substantial means. We're right on the edge of taking them all blindfolded into the desert and leaving them.

See the attached "Notice" that i took down and started handing out at the Colorado Department of Social Services out of frustration!

[xoxoxoBruce]

On the up side, global warming is melting the polar caps and the resulting icebergs have a much larger capacity to carry superfluous people off into the sunset.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

On the up side, global warming is melting the polar caps and the resulting icebergs have a much larger capacity to carry superfluous people off into the sunset.

Yeah, or we could relocate them all to low lying coastal areas to be drowned.

[xoxoxoBruce]

What happens if a couple of them share an apartment? Does it affect the benefits?

[busterb]

This's isn't really funny. When I applied for disabilty in 92, it took me around 3 years to get a dime from anyone.
All SSI and most of programs about big business, and give aways. I worked and paid into system for about 40 years and had to beg to get a damn penny.
I lost, sold everthing I owned to stay alive. If you have a problem w/a program, just hire more of your con-something. I go to store a few times a week and see who has a card. And who weights around 300 lbs. and buys all pork products.
Vote the republican Ticket and keep this shit going. And BTW pay China for the overdrafts of N2 to the what ever power. Vote bush and channey, rowe. Night all from a dumb redneck.

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

What happens if a couple of them share an apartment? Does it affect the benefits?

People on SSDI (the program for former WORKERS who paid into the system) may marry, recieve gifts, share an apartment with no problem. The government treats SSDI payments much like an insurance fund that you have paid into. In fact that's what the acronym stands for - Social Security Disability Insurance.

SSI is a whole diferent thing, altogether. SSI is welfare without all the bennies that people like Meth Girl get. People on SSI who marry generally lose their benefit. If they recieve a sum of cash or a gift worth more than $25.00, that amount is supposed to be reported, so it can be deducted from their teensy $579.00/month check. They may share a house or an apartment, but social security will come snoop around to make sure their roommate isn't doing anything other than pay exactly one half of the rent. The Feds will send out snoopers to determine if a disabled person is getting an extra $26.00 a month in food from their roommate, but the State of Colorado won't send anyone out to see Meth Girl's kids eating a dinner of slices of plain, day old bread from the food bank cuz she's traded her and the kids' foodstamps in for a few hits of her drug of choice. Go figure.

Most people on SSI DO share a place, but in my city a two bedroom unit in a humble but safe part of town is going to run at least $650.00 a month. Then they still need to cover utilities, phone, water, sometimes garbage pick-up and transportation. Food stamps for a single adult in Colorado are about $140/month. Most folks run out of food by the final week of the month and have to get down to the local food pantry. Here's a bare bones budget for someone like Clarity Rose using Colorado Springs prices:

rent $325.00
utilities 50.00 (averaged out for the year and taking
into account assistance from LEAP)
water 30.00
garbage 30.00 (if in a house, not an apartment)
bus pass 40.00 (20 rides - forget the expense of a car)
phone 20.00 (no long distance service included)
clothing 20.00 (from the thrift shop and let's hope your
winter shoes don't need to be replaced)
cleaning supplies 20.00
laundromat 20.00
personal hygiene items 20.00
dental 20.00 (Medicaid won't cover dental work, this is the
cost of a couple of routine visits to a low
income dental clinic, averaged out over a
year - got forbid you need a filling, or worse
yet, a crown)

Grand total: $595.00

So you start out the month at minus $25.00 and you don't have a single luxury like a newspaper or a cup coffee at a coffee shop or basic cable (this town gets three snowy stations without it). Forget buying a present for a grandchild's birthday. Forget holidays or special occasions, forget buying some shoes when your current ones wear out. If you are a woman forget buying a little make-up to make yourself feel a little prettier. Forget vsiting family out of town. Forget having a cat or a dog for companionship. Forget having any sort of emergency arise.

Then go to Meth Girl's spacious 3 bedroom house which she doesn't share with anyone except her neglected toddlers. She's got cable and a big back yard and nice furniture and a closet full of clothes bought brand new.

The taxpayers are pissed about Meth Girl, as they should be, but who bears the brunt of their wrath? Not Meth Girl, but Clarity Rose.