re: #117 Killgore Trout

Fox News: The First ‘Death Panel’ Victim?

A woman battling a cancer battle was dealt a surprise blow by Uncle Sam this month.

Diana Smith has gone through six months of radiation and chemotherapy — one week out of every month. She is in remission and had a donor for a transplant; being in remission is prerequisite for the transplant.

But her hopes of receiving the transplant were dashed in March, when she says, the Social Security Administration contacted her –without her soliciting it — and told her that her three year-old son was entitled to receive Social Security disability payments. Even though she didn’t ask for it, she signed the form and received her son’s first check check.

In April, Medicaid canceled her universal health care policy because her income level had risen with her son’s payments – making her ineligible for the insurance program.

Trickery!

The Social Security Admin could not possibly have had the first clue who she or her son were unless they had been contacted - which will usually, like 100% if the time, be made by the person seeking the assistance, DUH.

This woman was trying to get all the benefits she could get.
Now, I don’t necessarily blame her for wanting to do that, if she’s that desperate, and this woman must have been.

But anyone applying for/receiving benefits of any sort knows that if one benefit rises, the others will be affected - no “double dipping” above whatever the level is.

I worked with a woman once, who worked for us part-time, and took the job based on a pay rate that paid her just below the cut-off point where she would lose her disability SSI.

She eventually quit working for us because we were raising pay for her class of employee, and she didn’t want to affect her disability, because if she ended up losing the job we had her in, it would take her 3 years (or something) without income to requalify for the SSI.

The system is a bit of a mess, but the bottom line is that anyone getting any benefits is usually quite aware of exactly what those cut-off points are.