Wow, Mike! What a bag of mixed blessings! I am so glad you were approved.

I do not intend to pry but have you talked to anyone that deals with Adult Medicaid in your state? Where we are, they have a couple of options but of course, you have to jump through a bunch more hurdles. My Dad, who is in a local nursing home, made too much money for medicaid as well. We had to do some goofy stuff with setting up a trust acct that we pay out each month to the nursing home. It makes no sense to me at all but it worked to get him the benefits since we have been paying cash for his care for the past 16 mths.

It certainly won't hurt to ask about it or any other programs that might be available to have health care.

You would think that your wife would not mind letting you pay the premiums for your insurance. People are strange. Wait till she starts paying those taxes next year!

My best to you.

Call your local SS office! See what date is actually your date of disability not the date you were approved.

Hopefully it is when you first applied, that is the way it usually is with some kind of waiting period of just a month or so.

Maybe it was put in the computer wrong and is a simple fix..believe me I know of computer glitches with the SS office.

"If your application is approved, your first Social Security benefit will be paid for the sixth full month after the date we find that your disability began.

For example, if your disability began on June 15, 2007, your first benefit would be paid for the month of December 2007, the sixth full month of disability.

Social Security benefits are paid in the month following the month for which they're due. This means that the benefit due for December would be paid to you in January 2008, and so on." from the ssa.gov website

So...your SSDI should start when you were no longer working and your doctors deemed you disabled, right? And when you applied.

No I have not spoken with anyone about Adult Medicaid I did not even know that there was such a thing. I do know in order to qualify for some assistance programs you can not have any asset over $2000.

As for my wife I sat on her couch a couple of weeks ago and explained this to once more but she does not want me on her policy as she feels that she will be better able to manage her money if all comes in every two weeks. You see I pay her now for my insurance coverage as well as an additional sum to cover a savings medical savings plan that we had. So she received from me all but $200 of her Apt rent.

I hate to say it but she will be in for a rude awaking when this all changes as currently they are not taking out any money for the federal income tax. Her year to date with holdings have been $5.80. She will need to have an additional $140 per check taken out in order not to owe Uncle Sam money at the end of the year.

Plus I just bailed her out to the tune of $300 to get her power turned back on and cover overdrafts on her checking account.

Sassy,

Thank you for the info. I have filed a dispute with SS over the date and need to call and find out where that stands. I do understand how and when they pay and that I am not concerned about it is just that I do not wish to be on Cobra for 2 years when I could be on Medicare at less the 1/4 the cost.

Mike

Did you have a lawyer involved Putterfit ?

My SSDI hearing is coming up in June. I was just talking to my lawyer about it, and because of your post, asked specifically about Medicare for health insurance. I am currently on my husband's policy, but I'm not sure how much longer I can deal with being trapped in a crappy marriage :( My lawyer said not to worry about it.....they would assign a starting date that would determine when I get my first check (fingers crossed, God willing), but my disability date would go back to my injury date of June 2004, so I would be all set right away for Medicare.

Nothing "new" happened in March to worsen your condition, did it ?

And my curiosity has overcome me.....what does Putterfit mean ?

No I did not have a lawyer. The reason I did not was 2 fold first I did not wish to give any extra money that I would receive from SSDI to the lawyer and secondly I have a friend that works for SS and takes applications from people just like us who are applying for SSDI. He gave me great advice and I was approved on my first try. We both expected that the my disability date would go back to June of 2006 but somehow they came up with a disability start date of April 30th of 2008 which I am now fighting, still on my own.

As for my name. Most of my working life was spent in the golf industry and during that time I was one of about 100 people who were trained to custom fit putters in a totally unique manor.

Good luck with your SSDI case going through with out any hitches.



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Update
 

As I stated earlier I filed a dispute with SS over the beginning date of my disability.

Two weeks ago they changed my disability date from 4/30/08 to 12/22/06. I will get my first check at the end end of this month and I will be eligible for Medicare in Dec/Jan. That was good news and all of this was accomplished on my first time and with out getting a Lawyer involved.:)

Congratulations on getting your disability date fixed. They did pretty good. They can go back up to 12 months before the date you file.