2005-01-05
SOCIAL INJUSTICE
Not that folks with mental illnesses have enough problems these days I'm getting more reports of the Connecticut Department of Social Services increasing their "spend down" orders on indigent disabled people |
I find this dispairing, Dickensian, and disgusting |
In the first instance, a case manager at a Connecticut social services office ordering that clients process 12 pages of paper to verifiy that their conditions haven't changed from half a year ago, AND ~ placing the burden of debt re-payment directly onto the backs of the poor ~ by refusing pharmacies permission to "carry" medication debts and billing the poor later while ordering "spend downs" two months after the last one occurred |
For those not in the know, "spend downs" are a curious bureaucratic calculation required of the poor to pay extra money for essential medical needs becuase their income level might be "too high" to get essential needs paid for |
To compare this to folks getting health costs met via an insurance plan, basically, you lose your insurance every few months and have to pay full costs of medicines, or hitch-hike to the hospital with your wheelchair in tow, instead of getting transprotation costs met until you have paid a goodly amount directly |
So maybe you have to pay $750, though you receive $827 per month to live on | You can take it out of your food or rent money, they don't care and, apparently, neither does the general public |
Here's a typical brochure that attempts to explain "spend down" to a poor person | See if you can understand it |
I'm not saying the hapless case workers don't care about those whose essential medical needs are abruptly cut off | Some do | But others seem to enjoy giving their clients a hard time about it | It is this latter kind of "worker" who should feel, first hand, what the client has to go through when denied ~ say ~ a thousand dollars of prescription drugs until they come up with the cash upfront |
Not that folks with mental illnesses have enough problems these days I'm getting more reports of the Connecticut Department of Social Services increasing their "spend down" orders on indigent disabled people |
I find this dispairing, Dickensian, and disgusting |
In the first instance, a case manager at a Connecticut social services office ordering that clients process 12 pages of paper to verifiy that their conditions haven't changed from half a year ago, AND ~ placing the burden of debt re-payment directly onto the backs of the poor ~ by refusing pharmacies permission to "carry" medication debts and billing the poor later while ordering "spend downs" two months after the last one occurred |
For those not in the know, "spend downs" are a curious bureaucratic calculation required of the poor to pay extra money for essential medical needs becuase their income level might be "too high" to get essential needs paid for |
To compare this to folks getting health costs met via an insurance plan, basically, you lose your insurance every few months and have to pay full costs of medicines, or hitch-hike to the hospital with your wheelchair in tow, instead of getting transprotation costs met until you have paid a goodly amount directly |
So maybe you have to pay $750, though you receive $827 per month to live on | You can take it out of your food or rent money, they don't care and, apparently, neither does the general public |
Here's a typical brochure that attempts to explain "spend down" to a poor person | See if you can understand it |
I'm not saying the hapless case workers don't care about those whose essential medical needs are abruptly cut off | Some do | But others seem to enjoy giving their clients a hard time about it | It is this latter kind of "worker" who should feel, first hand, what the client has to go through when denied ~ say ~ a thousand dollars of prescription drugs until they come up with the cash upfront |
PIX CREDIT: Critical Art Ensemble, a collective of five artists of various specializations dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics, and critical theory |
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