Government punishes the disabled for working and marriage!
To the editor:
“Lee County has 90,925 residents with disabilities, according to state records. That’s about 14 percent of Lee’s population.” – Chris Umpierre
Fort Myers News Press,
July 25, 2010.
Well, I’ve sent this letter to every politician from the President down and all I can get in response is a letter from Social Security explaining why they are killing my family.
In 1996, at the age of only 20, I was in an auto accident that left me a quadriplegic. At the time I had insurance which denied my claim. Talk to almost anyone who’s suffered a devastating injury and you’re sure to find that this is common practice. After a short, corrupt, court battle in which my father proved and the court admitted that negligence on the part on the company led to the denial, we were awarded nothing and I was passed off to the Medicare/Medicaid program.
Now, I have worked consistently for the last 10 years. I haven’t always had the most desirable job and I can’t say my employers always paid me but, I have managed to keep myself working. Considering the fact that I’m physically incapable of performing over 98 percent of the jobs in our country because I can’t swing a hammer or work a cash register, I think I’ve done pretty well.
I’ve also served as the volunteer founder and chapter head for the Lee County Chapter of the Buoniconti Fund. An organization dedicated to finding a cure for paralysis.
In 2004 I got married to my wife and my stepdaughter who was about a year and a half at the time. Immediately, the government cut my disability benefits almost in half from $950 per month to $511 per month. How awesome is that? Diminishing the resources of a handicapped man that is not only doing the right thing by getting married but, who is also tackling the challenge of raising a child who isn’t biologically his. If we decided not to get married and irresponsibly pump out kid after kid, the government wouldn’t be able to shove money in my pockets fast enough.
Last year, my wife and I qualified for a program that allowed home health aids to come into our home to help my wife take care of me. As a quadriplegic, I can barely move my arms and I need someone to do almost everything for me. With the extra help coming in, my wife immediately went out and found employment with Michael Saunders and Company, a highly regarded real-estate company out of Sarasota which was planning a new office in Punta Gorda. The commute is a little far but, she’s happy to do it…. well, she was happy but, we’ll come back to that!
I’m also currently working. I work part time from home for DIRECTV. I also have started a charity called H.A.N.D.S. U.P. Charity to help disabled people in SWFL who need medical equipment and supplies that Medicare, Medicaid wont provide. On top of that, I’m using the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packer’s plan of selling stock shares in the community to bring an arena football team to the Lee Civic Center called the Florida Stingrays whose profits will go, in part, to help disabled people in SWFL through H.A.N.D.S. U.P. Charity.
Four months ago, the government decided that my wife and I are making too much money. My Medicaid was taken away along with the home health care help and my disability was cut from $511 per month to $164. Aren’t the people making these rules worthy of an award? While millions are out there right now sitting on their lazy butts cheating unemployment and Social Security, let’s strip away the help from a young couple facing challenges most people luckily will never have to face. What they don’t understand is that the poverty level for someone in my situation is WAY higher than a normal, able-bodied person or even a person with a minor disability. The cost of living alone is enormously different. Take the current gas prices for instance. It’s hard enough for regular families right now who choose to drive cars with great gas mileage. I don’t even have the luxury of that choice. I have no choice but to drive a mini van that has over 100,000 miles on it, a failing transmission, and gets 16 miles per gallon because my wheelchair wont fit in anything smaller. Inevitably, my transmission is soon going to go out and then, I’m stuck. With these cuts, I can’t begin to think about getting a new transmission and the thought of buying a new van right now is almost comical. A van with the modifications someone in my position needs put a used vehicle around $30k and a new one around $60k.
The toughest part though, is the loss of my Medicaid benefits that has placed the burden of taking care of me back on my wife. She’s now forced to get up at 4 a.m. to get me and our now 8-year-old daughter ready. She has to do EVERYTHING for me. Lift me out of bed and into a chair for my shower, shower me, brush my teeth, lift me back into bed, dress me, and lift me into my wheelchair. Mind you that my wife is about 120 pounds soaking wet and I’m about 220. After all that, she has to get herself ready to be at work in Punta Gorda by 8:30 a.m., work an 8-hour day, come home, cook dinner, and get me and our daughter back in bed. Now, that’s an easy day. My wife is an AMAZING woman and she never complains about taking care of me but, do you dare to think that it doesn’t weigh on both of us? Don’t you think she has, “I can’t do this anymore!” moments and don’t you think I get tired of feeling like a burden to everyone in my life that’s important to me?
We’re obviously not looking for a free ride but, these cuts are killing our family and pushing us right back down into the poverty hole we are working so hard to climb out of. It makes no sense to remove disability income and medical benefits from people who choose to work and are genuinely trying to become self sufficient. How can I provide help to the nearly one hundred thousand disabled residents in SWFL who are drowning when our government continues stepping on my head to push me back under and I’m drowning myself?
In the end, I’ll be fine. I can see the hard work that my wife and I are putting in is going to soon pay off. But, while I highlight my own personal struggle in this letter, I’m lucky to have the amazing wife, family, and friends in that drive me. Not every disabled person is fortunate to have the type of people in their lives that I have in mine. Those are the people I worry about. I’m hoping people will take the time to read this letter, think of those people, and provide help if they have the means.
Jay Lawrence, CEO
H.A.N.D.S. U.P. Charity
Cape Coral