At the ripe old age of 10, I was declared disabled. I have always had a whole host of physical issues, and it has been, shall we say, a real bummer. Let's fast forward to when I turned 18, I started getting the Disability checks and was "making" real people money. Hell Yeah. I never needed to work because I lived on a small cabin on my parent's property and they kept rent very reasonable. So, let's jump forward one last time to now. I'm in my mid-twenties, have been married for a few years, and my wife and I are planning for the future.
I'm terrified. I live in a low cost-of-living state, and my check each month is between $750-800 (I don't remember the exact figure). My wife has a part-time job, and it's not enough anymore. We're desperately trying to save so we can move out of our current place (Yeah, it's still the small cabin) and have kids. We've agreed that we want to wait another year or two before we start trying to have a baby, and I am having a hard time with finances.
So, It boils down to this: How much should I be expecting to make to offset losing my disability? I have been "toughing it out" more recently, but having Medicaid and Medicare has been the only thing that has kept me and my family out from crushing medical debt because I do desperately need that insurance, and it's hard to beat free. I could get private insurance, but it is prohibitively expensive for someone bringing in less than $800/month and still having to pay rent and a phone bill. Plus my rates would be higher because of my medical history. But if I don't get private insurance, then my workplace would have to carry me on their insurance and I'm one major surgery away from probably not being a "valued employee" anymore.
Before you ask, no I have no idea how much, on average, I spend on medical costs in a year. Sometimes I just need an inhaler to get through the spring time and a bottle of ambien for occasional insomnia to get through a year, other years, I'm in the Hospital once a month getting poked and prodded by specialists. And soon, because everything I have is degenerative, I will have to have major surgeries.
I guess I'm just really scared. Thank you for your time.
Submitted February 15, 2019 at 09:40PM by SuPeR_J03 http://bit.ly/2GM6QWM
