Disabilty and Medcaid?

If they receive social security disability benefits they are entitled to Medicare after 24 months of entitlement and entitlement has nothing to do with how much a spouse earns or receives in income because social security benefits aren't based upon financial need.

SSI which stands for supplemental security income is not social security because the benefits are paid out of general tax revenues - not the social security trust fund as social security benefits are. SSI is the federal welfare program which means that benefits are based upon financial need.

If a person receives SSI disability benefits they are also entitled to Medicaid. A person has to only be entitled to $1 in SSI in order to be eligible for Medicaid. And yes a spouse's income would reduce the person's SSI benefit if it is high enough. If there are no children the spouse would have to be earning over $2200 a month before it would make the SSI beneficiary ineligible. 1 child - over $2600, 2 children - over $2900, etc.

If a spouse has any income then the beneficiary must present proof of that income and if the spouse is working then proof of earnings must be presented on a monthly basis to avoid an overpayment.

That man who is getting SSI that Lynn is talking about must be disabled or he wouldn't be getting SSI. If he doesn't have an obvious physical disability then he must have been approved based upon a mental disability and Lynn should know by now that not all mental disabilities (like physical ones) are not always readily apparent to others.

I am bipolar. When I am depressed I don't leave my apartment for weeks at a time unless I absolutely have to. I have run out of food because of this and that's when I order in pizzas and pastas. People who don't know me would have no clue as to how disabled I am when they see me out and about.

SSDI or SSI? SSDI is "Disability." Spousal income doesn't matter for SSDI. (We were still middle-class, when I went on SSDI, because hubby was still working. No one asked how much he made, and frankly, it was none of their business had they asked. I'm the one who paid into it, so they dealt with if I could work, not how much he made.)

Medicaid? I thought Medicaid was for SSI, which is the federal government's version of Welfare. You don't have to be disabled to go on SSI, but you certainly need a really good reason why you're not working. (I knew a guy in his upper 50s, who couldn't get a job of any kind, and then his year-long unemployment ran out. He had moved from Texas to a village in MA for a job, but the job fell through. He lost his car and he had absolutely no money. Some how he got on SSI to give him a couple hundred a month. I don't know the full story, but it surprised me he was accepted, because he wasn't disabled--merely "too old" for anyone to hire him and living in the sticks, so no way of getting anywhere to work, but the main thing was the Medicaid, for him, since friends gave him money.)

For SSDI, it's Medicare after two years (which doesn't make sense to me, but there isn't much of what the government does that does make sense to me. lol)