Posted by Tomatheus on July 28, 2013, at 18:35:19
In reply to Re: any help at all? assistance?, posted by b2chica on July 27, 2013, at 20:42:30
b2chica,
How are you doing today?
To answer your question about government assistance, applying for disability benefits might be worth doing (but see the next paragraph). Some individuals who receive disability benefits also receive Medicaid, but it's my understanding that the government evaluates household income and assets in determining eligibility for Medicaid. Those who receive Social Security disability benefits become also become eligible for Medicare after they've been receiving benefits for two years.
Do you think that you can work? And to what extent do you think that changes to your treatment regimen might reduce any impairment that you might be experiencing? If you think it's doubtful that you'd be able to hold down a job, even with a better treatment plan in place, then I think that applying for disability benefits would be the most sensible thing to do. However, if you think that you would most likely be able to hold down a job given a few tweaks to your treatment plan, then maybe it would be better to plan on applying for more jobs if the employer that you interviewed with recently decides not to offer you the job that you were applying for. If you're not eligible for Medicaid and you apply for disability benefits now, I don't think you'll be eligible for Medicare until two years after the point when you start receiving disability benefits, which of course is a long time to wait for medical coverage. So, I think that if I were in your position, I'd probably keep looking for work if I thought that holding down a job were a likely possibility. Being passed by after applying for and interviewing for a job can be discouraging, but you'll never really know what good job opportunities you might be missing out on if you don't keep looking. Applying for disability benefits is something that you could also always do, but unless you're eligible for Medicaid, medical benefits would take a long time to kick in for you if you're approved for disability. If you could work and end up finding a job that includes health insurance benefits soon, then that would likely work out better for you than applying for disability benefits would.
I hope that what I've written will be of some use to you in figuring out how to best address your problem of not having any health insurance, but please feel free to disregard anything that I've written if you don't find it to be helpful. Losing insurance coverage is a difficult thing to have to go through, and it of course is my hope that you can resolve the situation that you're in so you can get the coverage that you need as quickly as possible. It's also my hope that you're taking as good of care of yourself as you possibly can. Don't be afraid to reach out for help if you think that you might need it. You sounded really discouraged in much of what you wrote yesterday, and I think that your feelings are understandable. However, as Scott noted last night, it sounded like you needed some immediate help yesterday. I first and foremost hope that you're doing ok today, and I think that if you're still feeling really discouraged that you might also want to try either telling someone close to you how you're feeling or calling a crisis line for assistance.
Well, I hope I haven't made this message too long, and more importantly, I hope that this message finds you in better spirits relative to yesterday. Please feel free to let us here at Psycho-Babble know how you've been doing.
Take care,
T.Conditions:
* chronic fatigue, hypersomnia, and related symptoms
* schizoaffective disordertomatheus.blogspot.com
poster:Tomatheus
thread:1047788
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130706/msgs/1047948.html