I'm so glad to fight with anonymous again

Anonymous wrote and I sincerely hope did not realize exactly how much they are proving my point that people judge me because I need assistance, I'm disabled, and I'm young.  I thought of not responding but will one more time attempt to patiently explain why it is unfair to lump me into any group, ever because of my disability or because of any other characteristics, including whether or not my family members are or ever have been on assist.

First though, I want to make this crystal clear:  YOU CAN'T PLAN YOUR LIFE.  YOU CAN'T KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN.  YOU MAY BE BEING POMPOUS ONE DAY AND PARALYZED THE NEXT.  LIFE IS NOT PREDICTABLE AND WE DON'T GET TO CHOOSE TO HAVE ONLY GOOD THINGS HAPPN.  THIS IS MY BLOG WHERE THERE WILL BE RESPECT.  I HAD SOME TERRIBLE THINGS HAPPEN IN MY LIFE, I GOT SICK, I FOUGHT FOR A LONG TIME AND RIGHT NOW I CAN'T WORK.  MAYBE SOMEDAY.  I DON'T KNOW.  BUT I DID NOT DO ANYTHING WRONG TO BE HERE.


Almost always, the criticisms are of people who use these programs for most of their lives and whose children use them and whose children use them and whose children use them

• Not what I am responding to. I am responding to people who think that because they work they are better than people who do not/can not. Also, I have been around to see the need for the system much more than I see a need to criticize it.  When I was 2 the coal mines closed and huge percentages of the population of my town and county and surrounding areas were suddenly poverty-stricken.  It took until after I had left home for there to begin to be a new economy and so the poverty-rate was extremely high.  I'd guess that MOST of my classmates families were on some form of assistance.  And this is not an area that people easily and happily accept government assistance; many are distrustful of the government.  It is much, much harder to abuse the system now and believe me, having been into it you do not live a life of luxury.  I couldn't even qualify for a tiny bit of income because I was getting loans from my mother.  My food stamps were very helpful but they buy food.   They do not pay bills, buy gasoline, help me get treatment for my condition.  They do not heat my house or flush my toilet.  And the income restrictions to qualify are so restrictive that I doubt many people sit down and decide "it is easier to live like this so I'm going to just not bother to work".  

It's also instructive to look at the disability claims of people in their 20s and 30s who manage to ride out disability and/or get permanent disability (which, of course, entitles them to Medicare even if they've not put in more than 1 credt toward Medicare)and compare this demographic of twenty and thirty-somethings to the people in the same age group who were awarded disability/permanent disability/Medicare 20, 30, 40 years ago.

• That's me.  But don't you DARE say that I didn't earn this because I am young.  I fought harder than you can imagine.  Do you know why I wouldn't have had a claim 40 years ago?  (Besides the fact that as I woman I might not have worked).  I would have been permanently in a state hospital.  Because the  meds I need didn't come out until the last 20 years or so until that time it is pretty likely I would have wound up in a group home at the very bed, but prior to lithium in the 1970s I am positive I would have lived my life in a state hospital because it was the only option for care of some like I am without my meds.
• Second, you are mistaken.  Medicare comes only with SSDI, which is Social Security Disability Insurance.  It it what I qualify for because I was able to work long enough and pay enough into the system.  29 months after the day I became disabled per the government I will indeed get Medicare.   Because I earned it.  No, it maybe doesn't seem fair that I can get this when I will be 38.  But frankly it's a lot more unfair, when I had so much more I hoped to do.that I got sick and had to stop working, doing the thing I loved most in my life.  HOWEVER, if you do not pay enough into the system or work enough credits, which is true for most people who are younger, you go on Social Security Income. This provides them with about $600/month to live on and they are eligible only for medicaid.t  Try to live like that.
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• Use your head. That is one of those insulting phrases that is not allowed on this blog.  If you care to insult people you may go elsewhere.  In fact, please do.  I am answering you only for the purpose of education and because some of what you said is wrong and I want to correct that for other people.

:  Decades ago, a huge % of the male population worked at jobs that were high-risk for permanently disabling conditions, jobs that required  heavy labor.   Today, few young people in contrast have such jobs, yet look at the percentages contrasting the disability claims and permanent disability statuses.

• Further you clearly are not aware how stringent the application system is.  People who have terminal illnesses are turned down, especially if there is an error.  Just wording something incorrectly.  If you say that you are able to do something that you really can only sometimes sort of do in an effort to be positive you can be denied.  If you haven't seen the doctor enough or the doctor isn't a very thorough documenter you can be denied.  You can be denied for no apparent reason.  You do not get disability by "waiting it out"; you get disability by being disabled.
• It is true that they have noticed people desperately applying for disability after they lose their jobs, meet the criteria of applying for 2 jobs per week and taking the first job offered, run out of benefits and so they try to get on disability.  When you are desperate to feed your children and not even McDonald's is hiring, you will try anything.  However, those people are extremely unlikely to be approved.  And what do you get while waiting?  Not much.  I was eligible for medicaid but had I been denied by social security that would have terminated immediately, putting me right back where I am: uninsured.

You can't blame those who work and don't cheat the system for being pissed off at it all, at those who use the system and the bureaucrats and politicians who use the system to procure votes.

• There you prove my point.  People who work are good, people who can't work are "using the system".  I have not used a single program that I have not paid into, heavily.  I made a lot of money when I could work.  Believe me, my taxes have  gone into the system to make up for my use.  You think you are better than me, that you are morally better, not nearly as lazy, and not manipulating the system for my own benefit.  I worked for as many years as I could.  I fought harder than you can imagine to work, and I do blame people who are so self-righteous they think that nothing bad can ever happen to them.  Also, don't swear.  It's uncouth.

It's disingenuous to suggest that the average working American isn't willing to use his or her tax dollars to award temporary aid for those who have had misfortunes, but they are sick of the lazy asses who use the system and pass that attitude of laziness and entitlement on to their offspring who pass it on to their offspring and sick of those whose "misfortunes" are not the result of blind happenstance but rather bad choices

• It's great that you are so generous as to think it's ok for temporary disability.  Funny enough, you don't.  That's private insurance only. If you don't have it you have no real benefits aside from some social services maybe.
• I don't have kids.  But my niece is going to grow up knowing that her aunt worked as hard as she could as long as she could, that I loved what I did, that when and if I can I continued to work part-time, and that eventually it reached a point that I was not able to do what I once did, and that if she can work then she will but that if an illness takes away her abilities to work then she will still be loved and supported.
• I would love to know what bad choice on my part caused my mental illness?  Or that I don't respond well to medications?  You generalize far too much.

Think of this: working Americans who want to have another child yet feel they can't afford one are forced to pay for an ever increasing number of babies born to women who are not just ignorant young girls who fell for some player's line and who didn't use birth control.  Now we are paying for those who actually PLAN more births, yes, PLAN THEM,  and it's absolutely amazing how many of these women are NOT from environments of poverty and are not uneducated.

• I'm actually too tired to care anymore.  Yes, this happens.  No, it does not mean that because Nadya Suleman is ridiculous that every person ho is pregnant and on the system is like her, and education levels do not prevent bad things from happening.  

UGH.


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