hipmama42
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Medicaid pays for my meds right now. I have to reapply/re-qualify every three months, send in the paperwork to my caseworker and wait for verification in the mail. Every six months I have to have a face-to-face interview with my caseworker. My primary has to send my caseworker a document stating that I am unable to work, or else I would be forced to attend their job training/assistance programs in hopes of getting me off of medicaid. What, so I could get a minimum wage part-time job with no benefits? Makes no sense, but that is how the system works here in Ohio. And if my income is too great, like just barely over the federal poverty line, I will not qualify for my managed care Medicaid medical coverage. I would like to pick up a part time job and work maybe 15 hours or so a week, but I would make "too much" money and then would lose my medical insurance. My Rx drugs cost around $700 a month if I had to pay cash for them. The system makes it so that I have no incentive to work part time. Any small income I would get from that part-time job would be eaten up in medical bills and Rx. I had to get my last employer to pay me in cash and we called it "babysitting" money in case she was ever audited. I didn't want to leave a paper trail in case my hours and income were checked out by Jobs and Family Services in which case I would lose my medical insurance for poor heads of families. They say you are allowed to work, but the amount you are allowed to earn and still keep the medical benefits is next to nothing. Soo....with my child support from the ex I could only work a few hours a week, like maybe 5 or 6? It was such a tricky numbers game and most of the time I was too sick and too much in a fog to deal with it. So now I am unemployed and having all of my meds and doctors paid for. It doesn't make sense, does it? The system is definitely broken. Oh, and my caseworker says that if I apply for disability, I will lose my medicaid from the moment my application is submitted.  I try not to think too far ahead and just take it six months at a time....and then worry about the next six months, and so on. I guess a lot of you out there know what I am talking about. You have to learn to work the system as best you can so you can survive and take care of your kids, and try not to stress too much because then you get sicker and sicker. I never would have believed that I would have become "used to" living like this. I was a professional with a good job and college degree, an IRA, great benefits, and all of that, but it is all long gone and in the past. Now, I am grateful for a pain-free day and feeling good enough to get out and enjoy the spring flowers. When I didn't have medicaid or any medical ins. (I went for 5 years without any) I went without some of the meds,and I got samples from my doctors whenever possible. I wasn't ashamed of "begging" for these samples because I really needed them and would not have been able to afford them otherwise. Especially my expensive asthma inhalers! My attitude is, "you don't ask,you don't get." The worst the doctor's office can do is say no, we don't have any samples of this drug. But sometimes, they had samples of something similar and would switch the Rx to that one (like with my asthma inhalers, there are so many didfferent brands!) so it doesn't hurt to be persistent. I would always ask for the cheapest effective antibiotic when I had a sinus infection, for instance. It worked just as well or better than the $100 dollar new ones. |
