The 24-month wait for Medicare is one of the most puzzling parts of disability benefits. Why should the folks who paid in to Social Security for a lifetime of work be the ones who wait? People on SSI get Medicaid immediately – and it should be like that for everyone. Let’s hope Obama’s heath care reform addresses this point. Read this story from the Dallas Morning News to see the impact of waiting:

…”Under current law, however, those with disabilities aren’t eligible for Medicare until two years after they begin receiving Social Security disability insurance checks. Johnson is one of 1.8 million disabled Americans in that two-year waiting period.

“No longer able to work, she became eligible for Social Security disability benefits in February 2008, which means she has seven months left until she goes on Medicare.

“Because she can’t afford private insurance, she prays that her condition doesn’t worsen before then.

“It’s not my fault that I’m disabled,” Johnson said. “I paid my Social Security and Medicare taxes during my entire working life. Why now, when I most need the care, must I wait so long? It doesn’t seem fair.” See complete article here:

From today’s New York Daily News, the president gets a up-close-and- personal story about the dysfunction of the Social Secuirty claim process for terminally ill people: “President Obama played the comforter-in-chief Wednesday when a woman with kidney cancer, no insurance and little hope went looking for help at his health care summit.

“Obama gave an emotional Debby Smith a hug and a promise, but she also may have given him a hand by making herself a living argument for his health reform.

“I’ll try not to cry,” Smith, 53, told Obama at a town hall-style forum in Northern Virginia, explaining how 11 years ago she skipped a more certain treatment for a kidney tumor so she could help her dying father.

“She was left disabled, she said, and now has no job, no insurance and no Social Security.

“I get food stamps, but that’s it,” said Smith, of Appalachia, Va. “And I’m just trying to figure out how I’m going to make it nine years till I’m qualified to get my regular Social Security, now that I have a new tumor and have no way to treat it.”

Read more: www.nydailynews.com

In Today’s New York Times, a litany of problems created by the economy. Budget cuts now for health care will create deeper costs later:
“Battered by the recession and the deepest and most widespread budget deficits in several decades, a large majority of states are slicing into their social safety nets — often crippling preventive efforts that officials say would save money over time.

“President Obama’s $787 billion stimulus package is helping to alleviate some of the pain, providing large amounts of money to pay for education and unemployment insurance, bolster food stamp programs and expand tax credits for low earners. But the money will offset only 40 percent of the losses in state revenues, and programs for vulnerable groups have been cut in at least 34 states, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a private research group in Washington.: See Times story here: