In
Susan Merryweather said:
My husband recently had open heart surgery from which we
incurred significant medical debt. The total cost was a
little over $160,000 spread over 9 different institutions.
We did not (still do not) have medical insurance nor can we
afford it. We have just been granted disability (my
husband had to retire early at 62 due to his condition),
but insurance does not kick in for a few more months.
"we"? Do you mean you are both disabled?
We have worked all our lives and have excellent credit (for
now); we need to decide how to proceed with this
overwhelming obligation.
I have been paying $20 a month to each institution which
comes to $180/ month. We are on a very limited income and
this is a very significant amount of money for us. The
hospital was generous enough to write off 80% of the bills,
but we are still in a position we cannot afford. They
recently told me if I don’t increase payments to 1000/month
they will turn us into collections.
That's pretty much a standard practice I've discovered. It's
not meaningful yet, so try not to worry too much about it
until it actually happens. The "process" ruined my credit too,
but I don't know that I really care. I'm still, luckily, debt
free and am not likely to be buying anything more expensive
than maybe a used car during what's left of my life. I
certainly won't be buying realestate or anything large.
....
You REALLY should not be putting things that lean toward your
net worth out in public! Not only does it give trollers and
jealous people something to bitch at you about, but it
increases the ease of which you could have your identity
stolen. STOP DOING THAT! STOP!! NOW!!! You've placed enough
information here that within a half hour I could have your
street address, home phone, everything I'd need to steal your
identity except your SS number and I could get those too for
about $80 and within 2 days time, for both of you. Seriously,
keep your personal information to yourself. And don't fool
yourself by thinking you have nothing to steal; getting hold
of your bank accounts for fraudulent wire charges wouldn't be
hard to do either.
If you are going to paticipate in newsgroups, you need to
also remove your real e-mail address and replace it with
something like (e-mail address removed), one set aside just for
this purpose.
Could someone PLEASE offer some advice and/or point me in
the right direction so I better understand our options?
Get to your church; talk to them.
Go thru the Yellow Pages; look for things like "ombudsman" or
social security assistance offices, which are usually all
free.
You apparently have mortgages, so get to your bank quickly
and explain the situation to them. My own bank allowed a
friend of mine in the same boat to take a break from car
payments for 6 months, and came back after that with with
payments of only 1/4 what they should have been. But I had to
make up the money of course; that was made possible by using
my Back Pay when I was awarded my disability. By the time of
my award I was living on Savings and dug deeply into them.
Since it sounds like you've been awarded disability now,
you at least know what your budget looks like; try to do the
best you can. It's quite a kick in the teeth, I know.
Which assets can they take from us? Are we going to lose
our homes? Can they garnish our IRA’s and/or trust?
Well, once you reach retirment age, everything but the amount
of money you get changes and you go from SS disabled pay to
straight SS pay. I don't think the money amount changes but
not sure; I'm not there yet.
You migth have to get rid of one home. That would be enough
money to at least pay taxes & the mortgage for a few years if
nothing else.
Yes, they can garnish your accounts but I don't know which
or when or under what circumstances. One valuable resource for
me was our local SSA office: They had a list of all kinds of
assistance that was available - you might see if yours can do
the same. I found the people in the local office to all be
good and caring people albeit a bit unprofessional at times
and the morale seemed to be low there. But most of them did
try hard to answer my questions and get an answer to the ones
they didn't know.
Since you said you're now declared disabled, I assume you
meant by the SSA, then you almost certainly also have an SS
lawyer? If not, which is entirely possible with obvious
impairmants, then there are a lot of lawyers that specialize
in SS cases and you usually can get a fantastic amount of
helpful information from them by just asking the sort of
questions you asked here. Just be certain you choose one who
works with SSA disability claims, that's all. Any other type
of lawyer is likely to charge you your first born and then
some in my experience and observations. Personally I talked
with 5 lawyers before I got started with my first hearing, and
ended up with an excellent one. I hope you do too.
And lastly, there is some excellent advice availalbe on this
newsgroup, but I'm not too sure the kinds of questions you
asked can really be answered to your satisfaction because they
are things that change from state to state, peron to person,
over time, and you don't have any idea whether a responder
with good OR bad news knows that they're talking about. For
those actually IN the process of getting a disabled status so
they can take part in the gvt insurance the payments come
from, this group is super. But you're past the process now and
into things a lot more important than trying to keep your
sanity while the SSA toys with you.
Get busy on these things sooner than later, yesterday if
possible! Don't wait, and don't be afraid to ask questions of
those who control the answers and who might know other things,
too. There's the horse's mouth, and the horse's xxxxx ...
well, you know. You can't tell which is which a lot of the
time.
Any information or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Do NOT be afraid to ask for help! There's help for heat in the
winter (called HEAP here), there can be help in paying for
your Part D prescription meds insurance, and of course you
already have Parts A and B.
There are many resources out there; the trick is in finding
them.
For instance, many stores around here give discounts to
Senior Citizens, but I just found out you can get them if
you're on disability, too. At least income taxes get a lot
easier to do, so there's always something good to think about
if you look for it<g>!
Be as pro-active as you can be, and like I said, do not be
afraid to ask questions of the relevant offices. Even your
city councilman, state house & senate, Federal house & Senate
might have information you could use. It doesn't hurt to ask;
worst case they have nothing to offer, so you'll have lost
nothing but a little of your time. Try to remember "Patience
and perseverence" and never burn a bridge behind you. Leave
all routes open, you never know.
I wish you all the luck in the world, and hope things work out
well for you.
Oh, one final note: You use "we" so often I never did decide
whether you are both disabled or if it's only your husband. My
wife is my rock in my case but she's also taken on the chore
of being head of household as well as having to care for me.
It stinks, but we do what we have to do.
HTH,
Twayne`
