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As May Nineteen Eighty-Nine came, so too did my Social Security
Disability back payment check. A lump sum for the year and a half I
had been out of work, it made my savings account very happy as I
considered what I most wanted to do with it. But with it, also came
notice that my newly granted Medicaid coverage had been canceled.
As it turned out Medicaid coverage was tied to Social Security's
Supplemental Security Income, SSI, a disability welfare
program for those who had not worked long enough to have earned
the 'better' Social Security Disability Income benefits. As
SSDI didn't kick in for the first few months of the disability
period, everyone deemed to be qualified for benefits first started
out with SSI which included Medicaid coverage. Then, as I had worked
enough in my lifetime, I had earned the upgrade to SSDI
which included forty dollars more a month and no healthcare
benefits... At least not for the first two years.
This was nonsensical and I decided to appeal the loss of the Medicaid
coverage out of necessity. Yet for the brief moment, on paper, that
I had Medicaid coverage it did retroactively cover my two emergency
room visits earlier in the year. Everything else had been handled by
my own continuing work health insurance until the extended COBRA
coverage period had expired.
As the appeal wheels turned, I decided to get my ducks lined up for
my apartment move in June. Obviously everything I had in my little
bedroom at the mobile home would be going with me, but taking it from
a sixty-four square foot space to a an apartment around ten times the
size meant I had space to fill. Further, in my emaciated state,
sitting and lying down constantly hurt as bone pressed down against
veins and nerve tissue with only one's skin for comfort. So on my
wish list for the apartment was a new bed, a couch of my own, and a
television. I could have easily exhausted all of my new saving to
buy each one of these as new, but I saved that for the most
important item. So for the couch and television I was off to our
local Goodwill thrift store to see what they had.
To my surprise, they had a long green couch, long enough so I could
completely lay down on it if I wanted to, something I hadn't been
able to do in a decade since I reached just shy of six feet in my
earliest teenage years. I sat on it and it was evenly firm all the
way across, no caved in portions that many used couches could have.
And the price was right, so I reserved it. They had a selection of
used color televisions, none had a great picture, but rather than
using up my bus pass punches going to other Goodwill locations
in search of a used television in perfect condition, I just took the
best one they had available and also reserved it to be picked up
later.
For my new bed, I decided to buy myself a brand new water bed! Why?
Well my not as older brother had one as his first bed when he moved
to Colorado in Nineteen Seventy-Eight and I had always been curious.
Not a good enough reason? Well, having seen years of
advertisements about how the waterbed form fitted your contours,
evenly distributing your body weight without any pressure points, I
thought this was a great solution for my painful bone against nerve
issues. Was this a better reason? I say 'yes', given that my
tests of waterbeds at two different stores were much more comfortable
than anything I'd lain on in years. Of the two stores, one didn't
seem to care if I bought a bed or not, the other one was very
interested and was willing to throw in a sheet and comforter set and
padded railings. Given my pressure point pain response, the padded
railings made tremendous sense for when I'd get in & out of bed,
so I bought the package. It would take them a week to get everything
ready, but by that point I only had a week and a half left before I
could move into my apartment, so the timing was spot on.
As losing one's healthcare coverage was deemed an urgent issue, the
Medicaid appeal was scheduled promptly and I arrived to represent
myself at the hearing. Given my perfect track record of two wins for
both times I represented myself, I had high hopes for this outing.
Oddly enough, this hearing had the most representatives of any of the
hearings I had been to, I can't say why. When the judge noticed I
was without a lawyer, he told me we could reschedule the hearing for
later and I could get a lawyer at Legal Aid. I assured him my
luck with Legal Aid had been poor, in part, due to their budget cut
backs. Then we could postpone until I found a private lawyer to
represent me. I assured him I didn't have the money to spend on
a private lawyer and I wanted to proceed. And so we did.
The facts were simple, I needed some sort of health coverage and SSDI
health coverage wouldn't kick in for another year. And the law was
simple, if someone received one dollar more than what SSI paid, then
one was 'too financially well off' to qualify for Medicaid coverage.
I said that I'd be willing to pay the difference of my 'higher income
level' in return to keep the coverage, they told me it didn't work
that way. I noted that Medicaid had covered my two emergency room
visits even though, technically, my SSI coverage period would
have ended in early Nineteen Eighty-Eight. With SSDI taking over
from that point forward, why were those visits covered? Because,
factually, I hadn't received SSDI yet, thus SSI covered
it until the point I received my first SSDI check, in this case the
lump sum back payment. And that was that. Nothing more I
could say.
But I discovered one of the other people present in the hearing was a
representative of the local community health clinic. A program put
in to place as the health care system for low income Americans who
didn't have insurance. Given my less than five hundred dollars a
month, I would easy qualify to see them for a one or two dollar
co-pay per visit... So the hearing wasn't a complete loss as I found
a new healthcare route I could pursue.
That over, my next task was to schedule the phone company to hook-up
a line at my apartment. They could come a few days before the start
of June and I asked the manager if they could hook up the phone
early. She said they could and she handed me my key then. The silly
part was, as I had no significant credit history, in order to get a
phone line I had to pay a rare security deposit of over a hundred
dollars. While I grumbled about this, given how much of my life
involved online connectivity, it was worth it and they promised
to pay back the security deposit when I stopped having a phone in
town. The good news was, given my disability finding I would receive
a discounted monthly fee for my phone service. I would find out
years later it was only for those people receiving SSI, not SSDI, but
at the time they hooked up my phone the state records hadn't been
updated to show I was now upgraded
to the 'better benefits'. I guess they felt people on
the largess of the full SSDI system had money to spare and could
easily afford double the monthly price!
My move day was the first of June and I had asked my best friend in
town, Jeff who had a truck, to help. It was a day my mother worked
so she wouldn't be there. Jeff was to be at the mobile home by
eleven in the morning... By noon I called and he told me he was
running late. He finally showed just before two o'clock. Everything
in my bedroom, that I was taking, fit right into his truck
bed, no return trips needed, so we were at the apartment and emptied
out by three in the afternoon. Then came the trip to Goodwill
for the couch and television, which was done by four, and finally the
drive to the water bed store which was actually only a few blocks
away. That trip was done by five and Jeff helped me assemble the bed
frame before he had to go for the day and I had to catch the final
bus back to my mother's mobile home.
I didn't want to list my car for sale in the local classified ads
until I had my new phone number, thus I had to pick up my car and
drive it to the apartment. Originally, I had hoped to have all my
moving done in time so I could be back and take my car before my
mother got home, thus leaving her with the empty bedroom and free
parking spot to surprise her when she arrived. But as Jeff was
late, I didn't walk home from the nearest bus stop until mother was
back from work.
She was agape as I came in the mobile home for the, seemingly, last
time and handed her the key. I told her she could keep the old bed.
For someone who had been wanting me to move out, and floating stories
that I had 'made up' my health issues to embarrass her in front of
her coworkers, she was surprisingly interested in where I was moving
to. I told her that Social Security had confirmed my health issues
and granted me disability payments and as to where I was moving to, I
wouldn't tell her. She had been such an ass over the preceding
year and a half that the last thing I wanted was to have her being an
ass at my new apartment.
But she followed me out to my car begging to know. After all,
what if she got some mail for me and I needed to pick it up?
Even though I had already filed a change of address with the post
office, I concluded that perhaps I should be safe and give her my new
phone number, and that was all. I started up the car
for the last time I'd drive it and left. I saw her in the rear view
mirror, motionlessly standing as she watched me go, my old key grasped
in her hands.
I will admit, I was impressed: She was actually able to wait two
whole days before calling me! With the day I left and the day she
called we had talked more than in the last full year I had lived with
her in the mobile home.
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