Medicaid pays for almost everything I need… but everyone is telling me to get Medicare now that I qualify because of disability. What’s the up side?
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From what I know, nothing. My husband could have got it, but stayed on Medicaid because Medicare would take some of his disability and not pay for everything.
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Some people qualify for both medicaid and medicare. I had superb insurance through united healthcare when I had both. Out of the two, medicaid covered more though it seemed. When I got disability though, they automatically enrolled me in medicare and then eventually medicaid disqualified me for it.
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I believe Medicare pays for hospitals stays. It also pays for my medication. It’s free so you may as well get it. I’ve gotten both for years.
Medicaid pays for both of those things in my state. I have 15 hospital stays and haven’t paid a dime for them
Well, if no one can help you here then maybe call up social security or Medicare and ask for information and maybe they’ll send you some info on medicare to see if it’s worth getting. I got like a 20 page booklet from Medicare showing all the benefits. They pay for some preventive tests and screenings but maybe Medicaid pays for those too.
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When they enrolled me in medicare, it was automatic. They never even asked me if I wanted it. And awhile thereafter they told me that I no longer qualified for medicaid because I qualified for medicare(or maybe it was because of my non earned income, I dunno). You may have the option to opt out. I never looked into it.
But don’t be surprised if they automatically enroll you.
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I think still qualifying for medicaid once you are on disability and have medicare, at least in my state, has something to do with whether or not you are working. I had someone once tell me that when I was inquiring about keeping my medicaid in addition to my medicare. I really loved the united healthcare “dual complete” plan they had me on when I had both. It covered EVERYTHING, including dental. I have to pay for my own dental work now.
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I have to pay for my Medicare. It’s only free if you qualify for Medicaid too
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I am on only medicare now. I was originally paying for medicare as well. I am no longer paying for it though. I honestly don’t know which program I enrolled in to pay those costs, but I no longer have to pay.
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It’s possible that Medicaid is paying for this. I just know that they no longer cover me on other things. I no longer have “Full medicaid” coverage.
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I think it would be a good thing to have both
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There’s also a program called Extra Help that pays for your Medicare coverage. I don’t qualify but wish I did
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Yeah, I qualified for the “Extra Help” program. I thought that mostly had to do with prescription drug costs though. I am forgetting what pays for what to be honest 
.
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Extra Help also keeps you from going into the Donut Hole with meds. @Bowens
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That might be what is covering my medicare costs.
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The bad thing about Medicaid is that I think you can only keep up to $2k in the bank which makes it hard to save up for a car or other big expense. Also if you get married they only give you about $1500 total for both of you to live on each month. Also, Some psych providers won’t take Medicaid especially if they tend to “cherry pick” for clients who are less severely ill.
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Dang. I need to call them for more info because I was planning on using my back pay for a car. So I’m wondering how fast I have to spend the backpay or if they’ll automatically kick me off.
I believe that your SSDI backpay, if you keep it separate from your other money, is not counted against you, at least for a certain timeframe. I had an issue where they told me that I had to keep it separate from my other monies and it would not be counted against me. But yeah, I would call them to verify.
Figuring all this out is really a pain in the rear end isn’t it?
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