Living Artificially

[catherine]

In the government handout envy department, it drives DH CRAZY that my brother has received the benefits he has from the VA. My brother was in the Army for 6 months 40 years ago. They actually REMOVED him, with an HONORABLE discharge (which also drives DH crazy) due to alcoholism. Has anyone ever heard of someone being released from the service because they were alcoholics?

Anyway, those 6 months have probably given him more lives than a cat. He has bounced from VA program to program for substance abuse. He got Hep C and they gave him Harvoni ($1000 a pill), and he's now cured. They have also given him an apartment, complete with furnishings for no more than a couple of hundred bucks out of his pocket (and his pocket is filled with money from the government's SSDI funds.)

Meanwhile, DH served in the Marines during the Vietnam era, and because of our household income, he has not qualified for any/many benefits. I know that when he dies he can get some burial benefits. We've never taken advantage of the GI bill for housing, because of the red tape it would have required.

Some might be as angry about my brother's good fortune as my husband, but as a sister, I can only be grateful that he hasn't had to die homeless against the wall of a New York City building on a cold day like my father did.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Some might be as angry about my brother's good fortune as my husband, but as a sister, I can only be grateful that he hasn't had to die homeless against the wall of a New York City building on a cold day like my father did.

or else you would have tried to give him even more help than you have, making it harder for you to get by. That's always how these things really work.

[Yppej]

More immigrant envy: it turns out my coworker can claim her working age, non-citizen parents who choose not to work as dependents on her income taxes. Also, if the father gets approved for Social Security disability that will not count as income for him and she will still be able to claim him.This is legal although they are not permanent residents either, but being sponsored so as to supposedly not be a burden to the taxpayers of this country.

She also told me others in her community who do not work sell their children's SS #s to people who do work so those people can claim the kids as dependents. She is working with them to create phony paper trails (addresses at school, doctor's offices, etc) in case of an audit to cover up the tax fraud, since this is illegal.

[Miss Cellaneous]

If you have more than 2k in assets you don’t qualify for SSI. You must have little or no income. It takes many people 2 years to get SSDI unless they are terminal. Many lawyers will take a case for free and then take a third of the back pay if they won. Many are not capable of doing the paperwork correctly and can’t keep up with continuing paperwork, etc. For our clients that truly deserved it we would refer them if they couldn’t handle it themselves and many could not especially with MI. SSI usually is between 300-500/month.

My nephew was born disabled. He has never *not* had a disability. Among other things, he has been an incomplete quadriplegic since birth. His parents were advised that he should file for SSI when he turned 18. He was rejected the first time, and got it on the second try. He's been on Medicare (I think that's the right one) for years to help with his home nursing costs, ventilator and wheelchair costs, etc. You'd have thought he'd be a slam dunk for disability, but no.

And my brother said that it was tough--he'd receive a letter in the mail giving him 10 days from the day the letter was mailed to submit certain documents--so in reality, he'd have 5 days to gather up the documents and then drive to a SS office, because there wasn't time to mail them in. And some of this involved getting things from doctors' offices, etc., not just paperwork that they had around the house.

[Lainey]

TT and Miss Cellaneous,
I have a younger extended family member who was diagnosed with a chronic mental disease in his teens, and a severe chronic physical illness in his 20s. He is now age 40. And yes, despite both of these uncurable diseases being documented numerous times by medical doctors, he too has been subjected for many years to constant requests for re-filing of his status, and threats to take away his financial support and subsidized group housing.

It is a part-time job for his parent to manage the administrative nightmare that is federal and state aid. And yes, all of this for a few thousand a month and medical care for an obviously chronically disabled person. Even that is not enough and his parent has to supplement this financially. Who will do this after his parent dies?

[Teacher Terry]

Lainey, they need to appoint a guardian for when they are gone.

[SteveinMN]

Lainey, they need to appoint a guardian for when they are gone.

^^^ This. I don't know if it differs by state, but in Minnesota if all of the guardians "leave" (death, their own incapacity, abandonment, etc.), the county appoints a (county social services department) guardian. But that person does not have a mandate to personalize the care the disabled person receives (kind of like the Hippocratic Oath: do no harm but there is no requirement or guarantee that care is optimized for that individual beyond that required by law). I am the co-guardian for the disabled person in our family for that reason -- folks like that need an advocate; someone who can fill out the forms* and push back at "protocol". I am lucky in that DW, as a social worker, can act as a sherpa for us through a process that is designed to intimidate through opacity.

* I know primary care givers (even outside of my family) who rail at filling out the forms annually ("Well, he sure as ^#&% isn't going to get better!") but it serves as a check against the bad eggs out there who want to cheat the system and the masses of taxpayers who have buckets of tar and pitchforks at the ready for whenever social services fraud is not checked.

[iris lilies]

More immigrant envy: it turns out my coworker can claim her working age, non-citizen parents who choose not to work as dependents on her income taxes. Also, if the father gets approved for Social Security disability that will not count as income for him and she will still be able to claim him.This is legal although they are not permanent residents either, but being sponsored so as to supposedly not be a burden to the taxpayers of this country.

She also told me others in her community who do not work sell their children's SS #s to people who do work so those people can claim the kids as dependents. She is working with them to create phony paper trails (addresses at school, doctor's offices, etc) in case of an audit to cover up the tax fraud, since this is illegal.

Your coworker is pretty stupid if she is part of the chain of fraud and is yakking about it.

I would probably be considering reporting her behavior so that her little band of thieves would be thwarted.

[Yppej]

I reported my crooked ex-lawyer to the IRS Whistleblower's office and they did not do anything.

Years ago I reported an illegal immigrant to what was then INS and they did not do anything.

[sweetana3]

I used to read those informant reports and unless they had credible concrete information, like from an insider that could be documented, they were usually not very helpful. The best, and funniest one, is the report made by a wife or soon to be ex-wife turning in her husband. Don't think she thought far enough ahead because they filed a joint tax return.