Disabled Without Social Security Benefits Part 3

This is the third and final installment about being Disabled Without Social Security Disability Insurance Benefits.

As regards SSDI, I have many issues. I have yet to meet anyone with disabilities whose expenses do not exceed the normal person’s percentage of income. However, in most cases SSDI payments are not anymore for the disabled than for any other retired person. It is not only medications or medical equipment that creates this percentage, but transportation for the handicapped, some specialized clothing, and other items. I have talked to several and Medicare is the same for them as it is for any retired person and the percentages they must pay are the same. The difference for many of them, they have been paying those amounts since they started getting SSDI. Many have to acquire Medicaid in order to pay for all the expenses.

I have not inquired as regards rents that the disabled pay. I would like to believe that the cost of any apartment or house for a disabled person, set up for their use, in the market place was the same as for the normal person. Do I believe that it is? No, because from my real estate experience if it costs more to construct it, it costs more to buy it. Even though a normal person can buy a property or rent a property that is handicapped ready, in most cases a handicapped person cannot buy or rent a property that is exclusive for the normal person. Of course, that is if the handicapped person requires special accommodations like wider door ways, no stairs, lower counters, etc. I have seen many apartments that restrict a handicapped person utilizing a wheel chair from visiting their friends because there is no way the wheel chair can maneuver a staircase. In many cases, a standard wheel chair will not clear an apartment door opening or bathroom openings. Many multi-leveled apartments do not have elevators. To truly practice non-discrimination against the handicapped, all construction should accommodate at least a standard wheel chair in the primary living area even if they have to build an elevator.

For those who do not qualify for Medicaid, the hardship is very real and money can mean the difference between three meals a day or one from meals on wheels. Transportation here in my area for the more severe disabled is called access-a-ride and costs more substantially than a normal bus ride. Personally, I think that is discriminatory against the handicapped and the transportation should not cost more for them than it does for anyone who uses a bus. Of course, that means across the board the transportation company might have to charge everyone more. However, it also means for true equity, that anyone should be able to acquire door-to-door transportation and from where I sit, that does not seem possible. So, for now the argument for equal rates for handicapped and normal people, does not seem equitable because normal people can not acquire the same access.

However, for most disabled people that is still the cheapest way to go. Cab service or medical cab service can be very expensive. Normal clothing for many does not work, and there is no compensation for having a seamstress make clothes. Their challenges are more than normal people’s. The next time you see someone motoring down the street in a wheel chair on your way somewhere, as a driver, think. Is there a sidewalk? Is the sidewalk free of danger? Can the handicap use the sidewalk for a wheel chair rather than the street? And obviously, wheel chairs do not travel at the speed of a car even when they are electrified. Think about the courage it takes to be there in the first place trying to be self sufficient. If time and money equate, then the handicap spend more time waiting for transportation than the normal person does.

I know I have used the access-a-ride here in Denver, Colorado. I have had to get up well in advance and the mini-bus has a window of thirty to forty-five minutes for departure and then they also can get you there early by the same amount of time or late for whatever appointment you have. I learned to be on time for an appointment, do not figure the time close to your arrival time. Give yourself at least twenty minutes prior to your appointment as the time you need to arrive when you call to schedule the ride. You also have to schedule the ride a day prior to your need to be anywhere or you have to pay more and take one of the transportation company's cabs assigned to that duty exclusively. You might be able to get short notice accommodations for the mini-bus but then only if you are lucky. Over and all, it is much more inconvenient than the normal person who can drive a car encounters. You might be able to make two appointments in one day if you are traveling my mini-bus, but do not bet on it. I have not had to use the cab service access-a-ride provides and partially compensates, but I know a friend who has and she has waited almost three hours after an emergency appointment for one to take her home, and then she did not arrive for the appointment on time using the same means.

I posed the last two items in Part 1 of this blog, items numbered 11 and 12, because it seems social security needs to be re-vamped. It is not equal for both people who were or are married. Actually maybe social security should be measured just by a person's income and not by whether they have been or are married. My understanding of marriage is religious and according to the current trend in interpretation of the United State Constitution, there is a separation of church and state. Considering that, then social security should not consider marriage in any manner.

I have felt for a long time like the correct way to distribute social security is to pool all the social security benefit fund issued during a marriage into a lump and split it down the middle for retirement benefits. That means at retirement let us say I was entitled in my own name to $700 per month and he was entitled to $1800 per month at the time of the divorce, then the amount at retirement for either should be half of the $2500 sum, but that is not the way it is. Derived from my suggestion, that would mean either would receive $1250 per month whether they receive SSDI or retirement. It would not change if one of them died. As it is now, the maximum I can receive at full retirement is less than $1000 before my ex-partner in marriage dies. Under current social security rules, It actually costs more than $2500 per month, because he will receive the full $1800 and I will receive a maximum of $900. That $200 per month savings to social security could be used to increase the length of time currently used to project the life of social security.

The current method seems to me to discriminate against married women because it devalues their part in a marriage. Gender is not the issue actually. Currently the discrimination is based on which partner made the most money during the relationship. It does not account for cases where one partner stayed home allowing the other to work when other responsibilities called for the attendance of at least one of them. As it stands today, if the one staying home, has not worked in the past 10 years, then they cannot draw SSDI. This happens a lot when one partner, like me, stays home to take care of an ailing parent. That was exactly what my case was. With the income from my ex-husband, we could pay everything required without me working or filing for SSDI.

Unfortunately, when the divorce came along, it was to late to apply for SSDI. The ten year period of time for the proper number of quarters worked had elapsed. You cannot draw SSDI and have the divorced partner's income considered anyway as part of your benefit. Under my proposed plan, if at the time of the divorced, he was entitled to $1800 a month and I was entitled in my lifetime, not 10 years, to $400 per month, then throw out the quarters rule, and award $1100 to the disabled person at the time and for the remainder of their lifetime. As regards the working non-disabled he or she can continue to work until retirement or their own disability and then what they would receive would be based on their lifetime. If they choose to remarry, then the new partner would have to be considered based on their contributions. If the new partner was receiving $1100 on SSDI and the original partner was at retirement age eligible for $2100 a month, then $3200 would be the basis of the retirement age benefit. Each member of that new marriage would receive $1600 per month upon retirement age. If the working member dies, the benefits in the first marriage $1100 for the first and the $1600 for the second would not change or increase. As it stands, if the same working person in both marriages dies, then both of the prior partners receive $2100 per month if their marriages lasted more than ten years. So social security is dispersing $4200 per month to both of the prior partners at the death of the working partner. Under my proposal, they would be receiving a total of $2700 per month. With all the current trend for equality in a marriage, that would seem more equitable than what is happening today. That money would be paid whether the first partner got remarried or not. If the second marriage partner marries on the death of the working partner, they would still receive the amount they were due as long as they are disabled or retirement age. Otherwise, they are re-evaluated again with the newest partner for benefits if they are not retirement age. Any way you look at it, each time a person remarries, the income is adjusted with consideration to the other person's income. It seems to me this might help to discourage the constant divorce and remarry issues. However, it also could mean less marriages, period. That is already the case for a large number of people receiving social security.

Let us look a moment at contractual business law. By contractual law in a partnership, each member is entitled to one half of the income, unless stated otherwise at the time of the partnership. Sounds a little like a pre-nuptial agreement where one party of a marriage gives up rights to the other partners property. In most states I am familiar with, any partner in a marriage has separate property. Separate property being anything they had prior to marriage, like a home, a car. The minute they sell that property and co-mingle the funds with their marriage partner, it becomes joint property. If the separate property is used for the marriage, like the home the partners live in, then a vested interest in the property occurs to the extent of what the property was worth at the time of marriage and what it is worth at the time of divorce. There is also an argument that could be raised about continued input to the income of a working partner in a marriage when that partner was educated during the first marriage and would not be earning their continued income after a divorce if the first partner had not helped with that partners responsibilities during the first marriage.

If I was a man and in my own right was not entitled to anything but $500 per month and my wife had been a big executive making big money and she was entitled to benefits of $3500 per month, then combined would be $4000 or $2000 per each whether they were divorced or not. From what I have read in the news and seen on news broadcasts, the problem is enormous for women much more than for men especially with the baby boomers coming up to retirement age. I have talked to many women who think they are going to make the same amount as their divorced husband, and that is not the way it is. Social security was never designed to be the sole support of people, but it is in more cases than any of us care to imagine.

Maybe divorces would slow down it they find that every time you remarry you are cutting into your social security benefits. Let us look at this scenario were the prior mentioned idea is established. I marry a man and I am, at the time of marriage entitled to $1600 per month in benefits upon retirement due to being married before. The man having been married before is entitled to $1200 and he was married before. Combine the two amounts and $2800 is the sum. Divide by two and the man gets a raise and I get less, if I were to get divorced again. That is the price of divorce and remarriage. It could work out better if at the end of the second marriage or retirement the man was now capable of drawing $2000 in benefits and the woman was still entitled to $1600. That means each would be entitled to $1800 at retirement. However, the first marriage partners would still be entitled to the amount that they received at the end of their marriages even if they were on their own income entitled to less than the amount from the end of the marriage. As you can see, both parties could be punished for remarriage. As it is today, the person in a marriage entitled to the most money from social security, is not punished by remarriage. The one, who is entitled to less, is. If they remarry, they loose all entitlement they would have received from having been in that first marriage if they remarry someone entitled to less social security. It does not matter how long you are married, it is the way it is. Does that mean you could be "punished" for ever getting married in the first place? Yes it does, but the law is already unequal and punishes married couples. It is something that should be looked into. I know had I not been married longer than 10 years, I would not be able to claim anything against my husband's benefits. This is another of those unequal things that does not seem right. I agree that there has to be a specified time period for a marriage to last before both incomes should be considered, but I do not know that ten years of what could have been pure hell is the correct amount of time for either party. Marriage is a partnership and according to the current trend between a man and a woman. Contractual partnerships in business law are more equitable monetarily than social security.

I do not have enough knowledge about SSI to comment about it. I do know that a lot of disabled live on SSI. I have no idea how the benefits for it are determined. But if it is anything like retirement benefits or SSDI, it is not good.

I now know, I should have gotten an attorney to advise me and taken bankruptcy right after the divorce. I might have saved the 401K and I would have saved myself a lot of headaches over money and bills. Some of my decisions at the time of the divorce were motivated by emotions and I should have talked to an accountant. I did the best I could do at the time and I carry no resentments about the arrangements. I did finally declare bankruptcy last year. I breathe a lot easier than I did. However, now I have nothing to supplement social security retirement when I receive it other than what I might produce by trying to make money on the internet. I have never believed that when you retire you will never have to earn an income, because I have never seen people in my income class that were able to retire. Until I can procure more sustainable income to add to social security, I do not see me retiring in any manner. I do see me dealing with my disabilities the best way I can and living life to the fullest. For now, my way is still trying to make money on the internet.

Again, when I turn 66 years of age, and draw social security benefits, I will be reducing the amount of household income by one half. That will be impossible to live where I am here with the minimal amount of bills. Unfortunately, as a divorced person I will only receive benefits equal to half of what my ex-husband receives. On less than one thousand dollars a month things will have to drastically change. However, my ex-husband receives all the money we would have had from his social security benefits which will equal what I receive now in maintenance. At least it will be that way until he dies and no longer draws an income from his social security account. I understand today, that once he dies and is not drawing from his account, they will adjust my income to what he was receiving. That just sounds crazy to me. If they can pay me more after he dies, then why so much inequity while he is alive?

Hope you enjoy my opinion and story, and please, comment. I do not know that all my statements in regards to current social security are totally correct, but most of what I do know about it speaks of inequity to married partners or divorced. As regards people with disabilities, I doubt that in any form what they receive is enough to produce a life free of financial worries just in necessary expenses. I would love to hear from you. I would love to see more proposed solutions to the social security crisis. I am sure that I probably will confuse a lot of people and knowing the nature of greed, for some no matter what they receive it will never be enough. I do not know if my proposal would work or cost social security any less, but at least it would be more equitable to the recipients. The sad part, those already receiving social security in any form would have to accept that what they receive is all they will ever receive. This is the end I think to this blog, but depending on response or lack there of, I am not positive it is.

Disabled Without Social Security Benefits Part 2

This is the continuation of the prior blog about being disabled without the benefits of Social Security commonly called SSDI, Social Security Disability Insurance. Now I will attempt to enlarge your knowledge of the the problems the disabled encounter by relating some of my personal experiences and knowledge acquired from other disabled people. Obviously, I have encountered many personal problems. Many were before my divorce, but since then they have become much more complex.

Before my divorce, I was a middle classed housewife who really did not need to find a job or face the problems I had encountered in the working world when I did work. Before the divorce I had brain surgery for essential tremors in a procedure called a thalamotomy. The procedure made it where I did not have to hire someone to feed me. The procedure did not cure all the problems of essential tremors, ET, but it helped a lot. However, in the eyes of the working world, it was still very apparent that I have a severe problem. The stress of being part of the working world makes the tremor more of a problem. I tried to find a job and soon became discouraged with the response. I was in my late fifties and that in its self was a problem in the workforce. I have office skills and have worked at various types of jobs in my life. I am not a fast worker, but tend to be meticulous. I have always had to deal with shaking hands, a tremulous voice and head. It has been shown in an EEG that I have slightly delayed reactions and an eye tremor. Fluorescent lights tire my eyes out. My reactions tend to put me in harm's way more than the average person and I will get hurt before most people will. This does not keep me from driving car but it does tend to make me far more cautious than normal people. So far in my life, I have never had a ticket or caused an accident involving any one but me. I usually make a great first impression but when scrutinized an employer tends to believe there is more wrong than meets the eye regardless of what I tell them. All people tend to believe what they see, not what they are told. Unfortunately, most prospective employers appear to find reasons why they do not think it will work.

It does not matter what the law in regards to the disabled says that I do not have to reveal my handicap, they can obviously see mine. Even if it does not require that an employer provide any handicap accessibility or special equipment or adjustments to the workplace they hesitate to hire me. In some ways employers fear me because they do not understand my disability and are not sure how to deal with me. It truly does not matter if I can do the job they require or not. Given a choice between me and the normal person, they will not hire me.
Regardless of the rules from social security, they cannot force employers to hire the handicapped. Regardless of social security and their view of the disabled, if I am able to work and still cannot get hired, I guess I and people like me are supposed to go without any income even if we have earned a wage at sometime in the past.

Unfortunately, today the law about age discrimination has very little bite behind it. For people like me and other people I know with disabilities, who have reached the over forty years old mark and beyond, the lesson in age discrimination has also been very painful. Let me relate a story about a friend who suffered age discrimination.

He had been employed by a major telecommunication company and moved to a location for employment. He filled all the requirements they told him he had to pass in the pre-employment requirements. He was not there even three months before they changed their minds about what was required for the job and sent him to a pole climbing class. The actual job was not one that appeared to require that and most of the jobs being done at the time were done using equipment called a cherry picker. When he got to he class there were a variety of people and ages attending the class. Right off the bat, the climbing equipment did not fit him and put him a day behind everyone else in the class until the proper gear could be acquired. He had to pay all his own expenses to attend the class. Three days into the class, he got up to go to his company vehicle in the motel parking lot and found it had been vandalized. Of course, he had to call the police and miss most of the class to take care of the incident. Now that meant two days that he had been unable to participate in the class. He called his supervisor and was told it was not important right now and to return to his job site and he could retake the class in about nine months. So he did. A week later he was called in by his supervisor and dismissed for the job for not passing the class. With all the expenses out of his personal pocket including a relocation, he was blown away and extremely upset. He called the state labor department and launched a complaint. It took him a few days to find out that several who failed the class who were under forty years of age had been retained and all those who failed who were over forty had been dismissed. Since he had worked in the field before and been certified in pole climbing with another affiliated company the union stepped in and said he should have never been dismissed or required to take the class. All said and done, nothing happened to re secure the job. He was given permission to sue the corporation for age discrimination by the state labor department. The real rub comes from the fact that a five hundred thousand dollars in a law suit is not sufficient to obtain legal representation. No lawyer was found who was willing to represent him on a contingency basis because as one of them finally told him, corporate attorneys regardless of whether he won the case or not, could tie him up in court until there was not a dime left to pay for the case. This is an amazing but true story. Hard to believe that to a corporation paying their attorney's an a hundred thousand dollar fee is cheaper than paying an employee half a million. Employees are just numbers and dollars to a corporation the size of the one he would have to fight. He dropped the case and moved on. Unfortunately, his case speaks loudly of how corporations view their employees. Many ex-employees commit suicide over these kinds of practices.

As a disabled person, if you are hired by a large corporation, be prepared to be disappointed. It does not always happen but in enough cases they will discover your disability if you have not told them, and before the probation period ends they will find ways to end the relationship. They will not refuse to hire you because that would violate the law but they will find excuses that are legitimate to end your employment. Many times they will find the requirements are different than originally presented and you do not fulfill the requirements. I do not know about all disabilities but I have seen people with Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity (ADHD), bipolar condition and epilepsy who have had it happen to them. All of these are invisible disabilities but disabilities none the less. Many time regardless of their claim of privacy in regards to group insurance, just filling out the enrollment card can disclose to much about any disabilities. Many of my disabled friends have experienced less compassion for their disability than a single parent seeking the same job. Honestly, most employers are only concerned about what they get from your employment and could care less if you are trying to survive in a world of problems and challenges. Personally, I have always found it best to keep my personal life apart from my employment to the maximum I can maintain. I try not to mention anything personal on the job including anything regarding health including today's headache. I definitely attempt to stay away from office gossip in any form.

Most employers I have encountered over the years tell you they are "family oriented" and concerned about the happiness of the employees. I perceive that as an untrue statement and made only to make you "feel good," appreciative and enthusiastic about the job. As a disabled person those words have a hollow ring. If your disability is episodic and requires time off of work for a doctor's appointment on any kind of regular basis during work hours, whether you are paid for the time or not, be prepared to be unemployed. Any disabled person can tell you that if they have to go to a specialist for their disability the appointment will probably take longer than normal time away from work for testing or changes in medications.

Let me tell you the story of family who were suddenly thrown into the world of disability. They were in a head-on collision due to no fault of their own. Insurance should have taken care of most of the injuries, but that was not the case. The person who hit them did not have insurance and the true cause of the accident, a piece of highway equipment without lights traveling after the time they should have been on the highway, could not be located. Both drivers acknowledge the highway equipment but the police could not find the responsible party to share the blame for the accident. The family, let's call them, Victor, Debbie and David, their real names. They were all injured. Victor the main income provider was able to secure SSDI. Debbie his wife, who was disabled prior to the accident with epilepsy, lost her spleen, was head injured and had other injuries. David, the baby, suffered a closed brain injury. To this day, none of them are able to work in the workforce. Debbie who should have received SSI has been denied and the ruling was found to be discriminatory by a higher court. Her lawyer has not been able to find any other judge willing to hear the case even with the discrimination ruling. So since 1989, they have all lived on the insufficient funds received by Victor.

They live in a sub-standard mobile with all three of them sharing one bedroom. David was assessed as never being able to progress beyond the age of ten, but Debbie did not find that acceptable and spent many hours working with him and educating him. Thank goodness nothing has happened to Victor and his disability has not killed him. Their story is so complicated in regards to social security it is ridiculous and it should not have been that way. Thank goodness Debbie did not accept the diagnosis on her son. He has his high school diploma and is trying to acquire some form of higher education. I am sure he will succeed with the support of his family. Without social security their living conditions have left lots to be desired and the money they need over and above Victor's SSDI payments have come from aluminum cans and "dumpster diving." Food banks have helped them. Welfare was not a option because of the social services ruling that they did not need help and all because of social security discrimination that cannot be resolved even though it has been found to be true. They have survived without SSI for Debbie or welfare for all these years and they will continue to survive. Debbie has taken advantage of educational resources and secured an associate degree in the past year and is attempting to secure a bachelor's in education. From her experience with her son, she feels she can help other brain injured children achieve their maximum educational recovery. She would like to open her own educational business after graduation where she will not have to depend on an employer for an income or work hours that aggravate her disability. I pray somehow that will be possible. If she cannot find a way to support herself when Victor dies, which will probably be before to long, she will be supporting herself on almost nothing. Whether her son ever is able to work in a regular work environment remains to be seen. I could write a book about their experiences but it still would not describe fully what this family has endured. The compromises they make on a daily basis would push many people into deep depression and a sense of hopelessness.

The dilemma between telling any employer you are disabled or not telling them results in a hard decision. I know I have told some employers who did not want to hear about my disability and their reason for not hiring me was "a reliability issue" as regards daily attendance. Is that a cute reason for denial of employ- ment? Whether I agree with them or not, or prior jobs indicate it has not been an issue, they believe it will be. I do not know of any employer or employee who has a fortune teller's crystal ball that will determine how much time off a person will need due to illness, disability or family issues. Unfortunately, some of us have more viewable issues than others.

After you have read the social security documents I linked to in Part 1 of this blog, let me refer you to one part specifically. This part pretty much represents the way social security views the matter.

"Social Security pays benefits to people who cannot work because they have a medical condition that is expected to last at least one year or result in death. Federal law requires this very strict definition of disability. While some programs give money to people with partial disability or short-term disability, Social Security does not."

This explains why so many have been denied benefits. Many have not been without and income for a year because of their disability and regardless of what a doctor tells social security, they seem to automatically not consider the disability permanent for at least a year.

I have seen one person with a different arrangement. She is blind and her mother assigned part of her social security benefits to her daughter. Since the girl has never been able to work a job with any permanence her disability payment is the major part of her income. Her vision will never improve and she was born without it. Currently, modern medicine has not been able to change her condition and the arrangement she has with social security based on her mother's benefits is and will always be her major income.

My own story about SSDI is interesting. When my husband asked for a divorce and I had no income of my own, it became necessary to probe the possibility of SSDI as a source of income. I called them and found I did not qualify because of my work history over the prior ten years did not give me enough quarters to secure payments. I do qualify for retirement income but SSDI. SSI would not help me because by divorce decree I could receive an income allocation that would be more than they would pay me. Enough said for me qualifying for SSDI.

Most divorce decrees only allow for spousal maintenance or alimony for a limited number of years which usually is between three to five years. However, when discussing it with my attorney I made sure he understood that part of the grounds for the divorce was based on my being too disabled from my husband's viewpoint. He agreed to the idea that I needed to capitalize on that view during mediation. I was fifty-seven years old with less than ten years before social security full retirement eligibility and a possible sixty-two year early retirement. Early retirement social security would not provide enough income to support me or even come close. I do not know of anyone who can live on four hundred dollars a month and remain independent. Although I have grown children, they have their own families to support.

I had to negotiate an income during the divorce that would carry me until retirement age. If that negotiation had not been found in my favor, I would have lost everything I owned. My husband had a 401K and was also due a retirement benefit from a prior job he had until the corporation where he was employed went into bankruptcy. Thank goodness he made a substantial income and at least I could ask for forty percent of his base income for me. He made substantially more than his base, but that was also one of those unreliable fluctuating sums of money. I based my request on his base yearly income. I do not know how other states deal with divorce, disability or income in regards to the spouse who is not working, but in Colorado we are an equitable state. I do not know all the ins and outs of the meaning of "equitable" but it did help with my divorce settlement. I still made some mistakes.

Divorce mediation is required in Colorado prior to the decree. Some of the things that were involved in mine should be considered by anyone seeking a divorce and especially if they are disabled and may not ever be able to work. I was fortunate that my husband conceded to my status of handicapped because if he had not I would have had to pay a doctor to certify all the things that I know are wrong with me and progressing as I grow older. He also could have contested any status of handicapped and cost both of us more money. I did agree to continue to seek employment, but that has been to no avail.

One of the areas of concern was a 401K and the current debts incurred by both of us. I do not think we handled the 401K properly. My husband should have been the one to pull the funds since he was over fifty-nine years of age and paid off all our debts instead of me. He would have paid less taxes in the long run, but because of his yearly income, he thought it would cost more because of the gross income he would have made. As it was, I ended up receiving almost nothing and would have been wise to have declared bankruptcy in order to have retained the benefit of an additional retirement income. As it is, all of the 401K is gone and most of it to taxes. However, the necessary repairs to the house in which I live, would have never been accomplished without taking it from the 401K.

The biggest adjustment came with a reduced income. None of my household bills at the time of the divorce were reduced and the income as a result of the divorce was short four hundred a month of just meeting the bills. The amount I received was less than one half of what I had to manage the household prior to divorce. Obviously over a years time a substantial amount of the 401K was depleted, and several years later, all of the money from the 401K was gone. In essence I used the majority of the 401K to pay debts that were mutual to us. He was able to maintain his A+ credit rating that way and within a few years after the divorce purchased his own home. Had we declared bankruptcy, that would not have happened.

During the negotiations I did do something that most people never think about. I requested that my husband provide life insurance to cover what I would receive if he were to die between the divorce and retirement time. The mediator thought that was a marvelous idea and more people should think ahead that way. I told her, if he died I would not have any income and would be on the street. That got her attention and she felt I had done her a service in providing her with something she should talk to her clients about in future negotiations.

I made one big mistake that I regret. I did not request he maintain health insurance for me. His group insurance would have permitted that to happen with a court order. COBRA ran out and the price they wanted to cover me was too high to pay. I payed for independent coverage for a time, until the payment became too high again. Now, I do not have coverage. I have recently been told I might have qualified for Medicare under the circumstances but again I would have had to fight for it. It only took one hospital visit for pneumonia for my health insurance provider to change my status to high-risk and price me out of private health coverage. I will not go into the high-risk insurance provided through the state because for all intent and purpose it might as well not be insurance. The cost for the coverage and the deductible is not affordable in any manner.

Thank goodness my divorce decree names my disability in the settlement papers. That was a blessing when one of the creditors tried to garnish my income. Once they found out I received maintenance due to a disability they had to stop per law. If I did not have that in a legal document, I would again have to prove I am disabled at my expense. I am grateful my ex-husband did agree with me and my settlement papers spell out all the problems that seem to keep me from working.

This year I will reach the age to acquire Medicare. From what I know so far, the cost will be affordable.

According to the mediator I did fare better than most disabled people she has worked with and receive more than SSDI would have paid me. It is still a pretty depressing thought when you consider come full social security retirement, again my income will be half of what I receive now. Thank goodness I was raised in a poor frugal family because I have always had a hard time spending money for anything but necessities.

With everything considered, I was able to stay afloat for longer than anyone expected. Last year I finally got a Chapter 7 bankruptcy decree. Now I have to figure how I am going to live on only social security when I retire. The cost of my housing, my mobile home is paid off, the park rent is monthly, and the income I will make does not leave enough to eat. So now, I am investigating other places to live that cost less and still meets my needs.

This story is how I have lived without social security disability insurance payments and how several of my friends have survived. I am not whining just relating how it is and telling you the problems that people face. Thanks for reading and let me know what you think and if you think we as a voting population should strive to change the laws in regards to social security. In part 3 of this blog, I will discuss some solutions to social security income and disability. I do not know of anyone who does not recognize the need for change.

Disabled Without Social Security Benefits Part 1

Before I progress into this blog, I suggest you read the following documents:

Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)

I do not know of anyone born into this world who decided their life's ambition was to be disabled. I do know there are people who attempt to defraud anything and take advantage of anything that allows them not to work. Our current programs for the disabled are inadequate and under staffed. And I am just as certain that most people who are disabled live below the median income standards. Whether they receive public assistance or not, they do not on the average exist in a personal world of abundance and prosperity. My experience with other people with disabilities, they constantly battle with maintaining a positive attitude. Many succumb to depression and isolation. Many are shunned by the people of the world and rejected by even their own families. As they become older and out live their families, if they are fortunate, many live lonely lives. No disabled person seeks pity that I know about, but a helping hand given in true friendship is gladly received even if hesitation precedes the help. In this blog I will attempt to address one of problems they face, social security disability insurance payments commonly referred to as SSDI.

As the baby boomer generation reaches retirement and more require SSDI payments, I believe to have social security available for anyone in any form, we need to revamp the system. As much as the government wants us to believe that social security was never designed to be a primary source of income, it is. Let us get real, for many, especially women, who have never worked outside of the home, and those disabled since youth, it has been that way, and for many it is that way today and will remain that way in the future. Currently, there are many reasons for women with children to remain at home raising children. I personally believe without at least one parent being available at all times, many of the children henceforth will be devoid of the values that so many of us in the older generations have utilized to make life worthwhile. Too many children are lost in today's world to gangs where they find a type of family that is dangerous to the mass majority of us. Unfortunately, for the parent who raises a disabled child, many, child and parent, never get to work in the world and earn a paycheck. Their work is taking care of their child. They still need an income to provide for that disabled child. I do not believe that a mother chose to conceive a disabled child any more than I believe a child chose to be disabled. However, things are the way they are, and even caretakers in parent form need to have provisions for retirement and even their own disabilities. Many parents get disability for their children but have no provisions of their own. With all our concern for welfare, what do we propose to do for people who truly deserve long term consideration? I encourage everyone to take a long look at the way social security is operated from start to finish. Get real about the fact that it is, has been and will remain for many, their primary source of income.

Let me tell you a little about my life first so you get a picture mentally in regards to how I live relatively happy. I have struggled since I was eight years old with essential tremors that for many years doctors thought would become Parkinson's disease. Unfortunately, I was unlucky enough to sit outside a doctor's office and hear him tell my mother I would never probably survive to the age of eighteen. Pretty scary for a child to hear. I am sure they did not know I heard them and I never spoke about it.

From the picture of me above, you can tell I am alive. I have experienced far more of life than those doctors ever thought I would. However, the tremor did create many problems for me that would have been nice not to have had. Nine years of prescription tranquilizers made me an addict. Even without abuse, tranquilizers are addictive. I would have never been able to attend and complete public school successfully without tranquilizers. Unfortunately, in those days, doctors did not know that alcohol would create a lot of the same problems as tranquilizers. Alcohol became a problem for me and extremely mind altering. I am grateful for a 12 Step Program for teaching me how to be free from alcohol and drugs. To this day, I still have doctors who think I should drink and have it help my tremors. I quit explaining and just walk away from that suggestion.

Obviously, I have been disabled all my life and limited in many things I can do. As I have aged, it has become worse and other physical conditions have complicated my life. I am grateful to the medical profession for finally acquiring a procedure that has eliminated some of the tremor. I agreed to have brain surgery in a procedure called a thalamotomy in 1999. The tremor had progressed to the point I was going to have to hire someone to feed me and help with many things that required extension of my arms to accomplish. Extended arm movement makes the tremors totally unmanageable. I still cannot put a nail in the wall with a hammer or carry two cups of coffee. But I can feed myself without wearing my food most of the time. There are occasional spasms that still create problems. Over the years I have had to give up many things such as singing because of voice tremors. That was difficult because at one time I was offered a singing career but inwardly I knew my tremors could not handle the stress and turned it down. As a side effect of the surgery, I have sacrificed some short term memory and that was easy to do in order to feed myself. It takes a little time to recall things especially if it is a recent event.

Everything considered I have come to the conclusion that even if I did acquire employment in the conventional workplace it would be short lived because I cannot meet other people's job requirements on a consistent basis. I am even more aware of my physical condition than an employer would be and one of mine, an eye tremor, is only viewable on an EEG test result. It does create tired eye syndrome and eye strain on a regular basis. I have not found a neurological ophthalmologist anywhere close to where I live. As of today, I do not receive SSDI, SSI or welfare. My only income is derived from maintenance in a divorce settlement. I have receiving maintenance in the State of Colorado since May of 2002.

Thankfully, I have been able to work part of my life prior to my divorce and for that I am grateful. The sad part is since the early 90's the only jobs I had was for a mortuary selling pre-need funeral plans that cost me more to do than I made, and for a fabric company. The second job was very short lived and caused me more physical problems that I could afford to remedy. The mortuary job required long hours, commission sales with no consistent income and high stress that made the tremor worse. Definitely not good matches for my employment needs. Both of these jobs were prior to my divorce. Even sadder it meant I did not have enough quarters paid into social security to acquire benefits over the required 5 or 10 year period of time.

In 2001, the truth behind my acquiring SSDI became notable when my husband of 34 years requested a divorce. Considering my disability, SSDI had to be considered as a resource for income after the divorce was final. Careful discussions with social security administration removed the resource during mediation. Even with a good attorney at my elbow my divorce settlement still lacked a few things it should have incorporated. I was able to acquire a maintenance agreement that continues in place until I am sixty-six years old and eligibility for regular social security retirement benefits is achieved. It has given me a unique insight into the problem.

Let me summarize a few points to ponder in regard to receiving SSDI:

1. Are you or have you been capable of being employed?
2. If you can work at anything, however menial, will it financially support you?
3. If you are getting divorced, disabled and do not qualify for SSDI, think what you should include in your decree due to your disability. Most handicapped people I know tend to over estimate what they can do and do not consider what the employers of the world will let us do.
4. What will you do if something happens to the maintenance or alimony you may receive from the divorce settlement? Will you be able to survive on welfare?
5. Get a realistic view of how you appear to an employer and the public. Many employers resist hiring a person with a disability, regardless of what the law says, especially if your problem is beyond their scope of understanding or they think the problem is more complex than you are saying.
6. Make sure you are able to maintain health insurance. It is one thing to think it is easy to acquire, and another when the cost of the policy complicates your ability to pay for it. If you have been covered by your ex's group insurance, trust me COBRA does run out and you will need to get health insurance. Regardless of a group plan, individual policies do cost more.
7. Try to find a compassionate health care provider or doctor familiar with your unique problems whether health or monetary. Get an estimate of what your yearly costs are going to be when your income is reduced. However, it may require a good attorney who deals with social security benefit problems in order to get your income or answer any questions.
   
8. Do not waste time fighting with social security over how it should be. They are not miraculously going to change their rules to accommodate you.
9. I am positive there are people out there who never have and never will qualify for SSDI. Obtaining help or an income for them is even harder. If they are getting divorced they really need to look at all possibilities before the decree is final.
   
10. Try to stay current on what financial assistance is available to you. There are many programs available to the disabled but finding the person who knows about them can be a long process and expensive. Many of these programs do not require monetary reimbursement from the disabled in order to participate. Requirements for each program are not necessarily available to every disabled person but may be disability specific.
    
11. Take a look at the woman who has stayed home and raised a family. She receives no monetary compensation for her time or work. She submits no funds to social security. She becomes divorced and then disabled and her income is gone with the husband. What happens then? She cannot receive disability payments from her ex-husband. The do not consider that when figuring income for the disabled. If she has been re-introduced to the workforce long enough after becoming divorced and disabled, she will be able to apply for SSDI if her disability is of a permanent nature. If it is not permanent, she needs to let go of that resource as an income and pray someone helps her until she can either establish a permanent disability, one that extends more than one year, or she is able to return to work. The same could be true for a man. These situations are not gender specific. When you negotiate prior to a divorce, especially when you have been in a long term relationship, beyond ten years, you need to look at what income you will have if you should get sick.
    
12. Let us look at another situation, a man/woman, who is the primary income maker in a family after a divorce where alimony/maintenance is in the decree. The person paying the alimony/maintenance is able to remarry freely, however, the other marriage partner is not. If they remarry they loose any support from the first marriage. Look at the situation with a disabled person and think what the limits are for them. They cannot remarry and keep any maintenance from the first marriage even if the marriage was twenty-five or more years. Is that the way it should be? Divorce settlements are frequently not truly equitable. Many times the primary income producer remarries and takes the disabled person back to court in order to pay them less regardless of the disabled person's situation. Yes, I have seen these types of situations.
    

If you are able to work at all, be prepared to fight with social security for your disability payments. From what I have seen you cannot be only slightly disabled, you must be 100% disabled in social security's eyes. It does not matter if your doctor says you are or a combination of doctors who are not employed by social security. It only matters that social security and their doctors see you as disabled. Even if you cannot work and your doctor has told you so, social security seems to have a problem paying benefits without at least one denial.

I had a friend of mine who was stricken suddenly with a mental disorder to the point that she was found running naked through city streets. What I will relate is a true story. She was treated as an out patient and her condition continued to degenerate. She had been treated for severe adult ADHD prior to any of these episodes and the medicines seemed to help only slightly. She continued for a long time to work as a self-employed person. Her job did not supply her with the money she needed to survive doing the normal eight hour days. She had episodes of blackouts due to sleep deprivation and her over all health was failing. Her visits to a doctor were minimal because frankly, she did not have insurance or the money to pay for the visits. She had been a nurse and thought she knew something about what her health issues were. Nurses should never play doctor on themselves. Because of her age, she was not able to find a job other than the one she had self-employed as a medical transcriptionist. After the nude incident, the county health officials got involved. However, they can only do so much. Another incident ended with them putting her in a state mental institution. Everything they found wrong with her other than mental, like cancer, should have spoken loud and clear of permanent disability. It took more than a year to get her benefits and a county health department that refused to accept no for an answer. In between times, she lost everything she owned. According to the folks with the county, her self-employment for several years complicated her acquiring her rightful benefits. The only way she retained any personal pictures, private papers or momentos was due to me and her considerate and helpful landlord. I had the unpleasant duty of liquidating her things or having the landlord throw everything out. Landlords do have a right to the use of their property and if someone does not have family anywhere around, they can do whatever they must do to the property. This landlord waited more than three months without payment before it became apparent that the tenant was returning or able to pay the rent.

Should it have been this far advanced into her disability before receiving her benefits and being taken out of the working world? According to the doctor who diagnosed her adult ADHD it alone should have been enough. It did not seem to matter to anyone that what she was doing was taking twice as long as anyone else to accomplish. She was doing piece work and that did not matter to her employer because he really did not know how long it took her to accomplish the task. No one knew that the doctor who diagnosed her had told her he was surprised she could work at all. She was so anxious to be healthy and independent that she was willing to push herself to a breaking point and once she got there, things became even more complicated. In between times good county mental health officials and I as her friend did all we could to try to get her out of the workforce. Her life when I last saw her had no semblance to the life she lived in a self-supporting world. The truth was her life in a self-supporting world was not really anything close to normal or healthy. She finally received her benefits, Medicare and Medicaid and was living in an assisted-living facility. I understand she died and I know the last time I saw her she did not recognize me. Many times when I visited her the people aiding her treated her like she just needed to die and quit inconveniencing them. However, I feel doctors drug out her life for the benefits they received. For me, I pray I never get to that point. Many questions for me arose from this story, and many are still unanswered. Just because someone makes money does not mean they should be working and there is at this time no one that I know who can evaluate whether a person should be kept from working. How can you force someone not to work? It makes me wonder how many mentally ill are working and creating more problems than we can cure. I doubt anyone checked her work and people's medical records could have errors in them because of her. Pretty scary when you really think about it.

I will continue to relate some true stories I have seen and heard in part 2 of this blog. For today, this is enough to be thought provoking for all.

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