Having a disability does not stop me from wanting to work. \u00a0However, I\u00a0require caregivers to come in and aid me with most every task of getting ready in the morning. \u00a0These cares are costly,\u00a0with private pay costs of around\u00a0$25\/hr (as quoted by one agency). \u00a0Since I personally require 4 to 5 hours of visits daily, with\u00a0additional hours for basic housekeeping and laundry, it becomes\u00a0unfeasible to pay for this level of healthcare out of pocket.\u00a0 Medicaid would generally pay for the cost of these cares, but there are, however, restrictions on what an individual can earn while in the program.<\/p>\n
Generally, one might consider insurance for covering these costs, but private health insurance will only cover “medical related home health care” such as nurse visits, bandage changes, etc. \u00a0The option most would consider, for post retirement healthcare, would be to pay into a\u00a0Long-Term Health Care plan, but these plans\u00a0are set up with lifetime limitations on how much can be spent on an individual member, and are generally not designed for someone with a disability.<\/p>\n
This leaves Medicaid as the only viable option, for those living independently. \u00a0The problem is that Medicaid is generally designed to aid those with little or no income. \u00a0An individual on Social Security can qualify for Medicaid, but\u00a0they must\u00a0maintain\u00a0assets less than $2000 to remain in the program, and stay within relatively low income (levels determined by State). \u00a0Even programs such as the Medicaid Purchase Plan<\/a>\u00a0(see more details on my page covering this program), have earning restrictions (250% of the Federal Poverty Level for Wisconsin residents).\u00a0 Per these restrictions, many individuals with disabilities opt to work only part-time, if at all. \u00a0The reality of the matter is that I could relatively easily stay at home, get a monthly Social Security check, all while receiving all of the Medicaid based home healthcare I need in a given day, if I simply opted not to work. \u00a0No questions asked.<\/p>\n However,\u00a0I, as well as many other individuals with disabilities, want to be an active part of the workforce. \u00a0This leaves me and many others in a precarious situation of balancing our working lives, with the restrictions of the Medicaid programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Having a disability does not stop me from wanting to work. \u00a0However, I\u00a0require caregivers to come in and aid me with most every task of getting ready in the morning. \u00a0These cares are costly,\u00a0with private pay costs of around\u00a0$25\/hr (as quoted by one agency). \u00a0Since I personally require 4 to 5 hours of visits daily, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-advocacy","category-discussions"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stayingfrosty.net\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}