For all the uneducated about medicaid and welfare,

[shraby]

which is everyone who has never had to use it. There should be a requirement that everyone has to apply for them. That would open a whole bunch of eyes. Most people don't know what you can't have as assets in order to qualify. How better to teach them what is drastically wrong with the programs.
I mean everyone..congresscritters included..they would find out fast the hoops one has to go through.

All they want on the applications is everything but your great grandmother's shoe size.

[EFerrari]

1. And it's always a war of attrition -- on you. They want you to get too tired

or too ill and give up and go away.

This is the wonderful "progress" many of us are being browbeaten into celebrating.

Thanks, guys.

[Lars39]

2. The spend-down is vicious.

And for all those people who say hire a lawyer, the longer the case takes, the more money the lawyer makes. There are caps, but it's still to their benefit to drag it out.

I see them opening up medicaid as another way to put some people into permanent poverty.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Absolutely right!!!

It isn't bad enough that you are in a position to have to appeal for help, but then the process totally humiliates and dehumanizes you to such an extent that you must wonder if it would be better to starve to death.

[cliffordu]

4. Medicaid requires basically re-applying every six months

You have to fill out 6 pages of paperwork that lists ALL of your assets and bank acct's...The you either mail all of that in or go have an interview and then they MIGHT give you what you need.

Here in Washington it's beyond the pale in terms of making one feel like a criminal or a leech.

[Jamastiene]

5. Absolutely.

And God help you if any part of the federal government owes you money. They'll say they didn't find any of your invoices for 4 months straight, then turn around and say you are not even in the system. For four months I have worked this job for no pay. Shit, it runs out next August. I guess if they don't pay me for my job and keep claiming they never got the invoices, I'm out a whole year's salary. Think I can get the Treasury to dock their next paychecks the money they owe me? No, but God help you if you owe the VA on the co-pay. You'll come to expect the Treasury to take money out at their whim and send you a notice 2 weeks after they have already done it.

You have to fight and fight and fight and fight. Then when you feel like you don't have anything left to give and you don't have any fight left in you, you have to fight some more. Then after all that, they turn you down and you have to start the process all over again. Then you have to keep fighting until finally what you are "eligible" for is yours...until they do a means test. Then, you gotta do a bunch more crap every time you turn around.

[madrchsod]

6. medicaid should become medicare

at least the states are off the hook and people can get access to 99% of the doctors and hospitals.

[jillan]

7. Anything that has to do with the government has alot of paperwork and scrutiny.

I have a family member that has Medicaid - it took hours and tons of paperwork, meetings for her to get it.

So much time and money is wasted on all the red tape, but when it comes to dealing with the government, I just expect it. It sux, but thats the incompetent way they do things.

[juno jones]

8. Means Testing.

And the paperwork never stops. Since you need paperwork from employers and landlords you have no privacy, everyone knows your business and that you are poor with all the yummy societal baggage attached.

And don't get me going about social workers who act as if granting benfits would be a pound of flesh excised from their very own asses.

I wish I was as blissfully ignorant of the minutia of poverty as many on this board seem to be.