Is one of the symptoms of chronic disease being poor? [View all]

If you are sick enough to get Social Security Disability and they approve you as soon as you apply (best case scenario), you still have to wait 6 months before they'll start to pay you. So for those first 5 months when you are too sick to work, you don't get any help.

If you are so sick that you get disability, you'll get assistance that is less than what you would make if you had a part time minimum wage (federal standard) job.

If you get disability assistance, after two years, you will be signed up for Medicare. I don't know why they make you wait for 24 after you have received assistance before you can get on Medicare. Maybe it's a survival thing and they want to thin the rolls before they just give out help for the sick.

Personal note: I'm 18 months into my 24 month wait for Medicare and will easily spend 30% of my "benefit" on medical expenses. And I'm considered "well" with no active flare up or hospital stays. As soon as I need to see a specialist it will jump to 60-75% of my money going to medical expenses. For the first 6 months (while I waited for the "benefits" to kick in after being approved for disability) after I was diagnosed and got out of the hospital, I was paying 150-200% of what my benefits would eventually be to medical costs.

If being sick isn't bad enough, you also get to be chronically poor it would appear.

(Will x-post in GD later to see what people not in this boat have to say about it)