<p>How do you set the “minimum amount,” after which the amount is evenly divided? As you say, the relative abilities of each kiddo to earn a decent living can change over time, as well as their medical and/or other needs.</p>
<p>Just got off the phone with D’s MD specialist in LA & we’re hoping to get her healthy enough so she can get a full-time job, but none of us knows whether that will happen.</p>
<p>I am guessing how much my youngest will need and working from there. I am using financial calculators to figure out what she might need for 70 years. I will adjust as the years go by…</p>
<p>“Wonder if it might make more sense for your friend to create a special needs trust with the life insurance policy for the Down’s kid. Just a thought.”</p>
<p>I think that makes far more sense to do it that way, I will suggest it. And people need to talk about these things, as uncomfortable as it is. I wonder if the most reasonable thing would be to leave her estate 50/50 to each child, with an additional life insurance policy to take care of the Down’s kid. And talk about this to her children, so the younger child doesn’t feel shorted in any way. Though I doubt there will be much of an estate.</p>
<p>dstar, to answer your question in post 111:
yes, I work in a poor-ish, rural school district. There is a variety of income levels. It used to be mostly poor folks, who paid their teachers pretty well, as compared to surrounding districts. Now there are more middle class folks building houses on the old farmland that has become housing developments. Presently ours is the second lowest paying district in the southern part of the state.</p>
<p>The increases in numbers of students ID’d for 504 is significant.<br>
I also appreciate the clarification between SSI and SSDI.</p>
<p>At this point neither I nor the docs are willing and able to decide what our future will hold. We will keep revisiting the issue as more info emerges about our kids. Am glad we will have some assets to help our kids as need be in the future.</p>
<p>MJSMOM, that was helpful, thanks. I must fill out a few “disability forms” a month, almost always for low income kids and frequently think it can be a conflict of interest. Nice to understand that nuance.</p>
<p>BTW, it seems to me that the way school districts handle 504’s and IEP’s varies tremendously.</p>
<p>Oh and dstark, that conservator thing drives me a bit nuts.Best wishes to your family.</p>
<p>I get a lot of “kids” that regional center thinks shouldd be giving informed cosent, and I think they should not.These are young people without involvd families, and too often they are being asked to consent to things that are not in their best interest., Like continuing crazy medication cocktails, and subsequent metabolic problems.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap, that last paragraph tells a messy story. That is scary.</p>
<p>I had dinner with somebody who is a relative of a lawyer. The lawyer’s job is to get disabled people Ssi. The story I was told is a little different than that study. The lawyer will not take a case to court unless he knows his client is disabled and will receive Ssi. The lawyer wants a
100 percent success rate in court. The hard part is getting the client to have a shot in court. There are a lot of people that should be on Ssi but don’t know about Ssi. They don’t have the support group to help them get Ssi. The lawyer takes a lot more cases to court than 300 a year.</p>
<p>There are a lot of educated people on cc that have the means or knowledge to help their kids. And it is still difficult to work through the mazes and get the help.</p>
<p>My wife and I were talking to an educator and the educator was surprised that we had conservatorship and our daughter had Ssi. There are tons of people that are not getting their benefits in a timely manner.</p>
<p>^^^^^
That’s what is so sad. Some truly disabled people will never obtain benefits they are
legally eligible for. The crazy maze of paperwork, phone calls, lawyers cannot be managed by many unless they have family or other advocates working for them. Unfortunately, that is not always the case.</p>
<p>We have not made all the right moves with our DD. It is a challenge for us to manage her life and services while working and running a home and just living. But we we very fortunate that she attended an out of district special needs school. The staff there helped us understand the options to pursue: SSI, guardianship, transition services, DDD registration, DVRS services, special needs trusts,etc, etc.
It was difficult for us to decide on an out of district placement. We wanted to keep her mainstreamed as much as possible. But for our DD, it was the right choice.</p>
<p>We NEVER would have learned of the available services without the special needs school’s help. They walked us through all the choices that we made for DD.
Her life is still difficult and complicated. Without the support services in place that she does have, it would be awful.</p>
<p>My wife would have never been able to navigate the maze to qualify for disability on her own. She was scholar athlete at a major univesrity and earned a masters degree. Her illness has taken so much out of her she could have never fought the system on her own.
I am sure there is fraud I am just not sure it if is not offset by the people who qualify and do not receive the benefit.</p>
<p>I would bet the fraud is smaller…</p>
<p>We are the ones going through this…we know…</p>
<p>I agree with you. It is amazing how many people I meet that hate these programs until they or a family member needs one.</p>
<p>Yeah… Absolutely…</p>
<p>“It is amazing how many people I meet that hate these programs until they or a family member needs one”</p>
<p>You actually know people that hate these programs? Really?</p>
<p>There are plenty of people who make negative remarks about ss disability. On a college football board I read there is an entire off topic thread bashing the program based on the NPR show.</p>
<p>Since many people had no idea my wife was on disability we were also the beneficiaries of remarks about lazy people etc.</p>
<p>busdriver, yes.</p>
<p>Like tom1944, we’ve heard blanket negative comments about programs for disabled people.
The programs are expensive to provide; some people resent ‘their’ tax dollars funding programs for other people they consider lazy, entitled, etc. </p>
<p>It’s ignorance of the situation.
Of course, there are people on the SSI roles fraudulantly. But there are many more in genuine need. Our DD could be on the street at some point without SSI and other supports. She wouldn’t be healthy or safe long.</p>
<p>Having a DD with special needs has taught us to be cautious in judging others’ situations.
In life, you just never know. Until you, unfortunately, DO know.</p>
<p>My aunt, who is very liberal, was talking about the npr show with me yesterday. She was very upset with all the fraud, but we started talking about the show and about people on ssi. </p>
<p>That congressional study was absurd. The study tried to look at the most likely group of applicants to commit fraud, chose 2 out of 3 districts where applicants were more likely to commit fraud… Then used subjective methods on many of the cases to say a case was a fraud. </p>
<p>If a student tried to pass this off as a random study, he or she should get a D- grade.
The amount of fraud is overstated by…I don’t know. The people who set
up the study don’t know. Tom Coburn doesn’t know. The author of the npr piece doesn’t know the percentage of fraud. I wouldn’t expect the author to know. I do know this…the amount of fraud in ssi was overstated in that study by a huge factor. The amount of fraud is
probably 5 to 10 times less than the amount of fraud that was talked
about in the study…</p>
<p>Why would a study of ssi fraud be set up that is so slanted and incorrect
if people were not against FUNDING programs like ssi? </p>
<p>When budgets are proposed, we can see the where the proposers hearts are. We can see their priorities. It is not hard. </p>
<p>I am tired of the stupidity, ignorance, the ideologocal arguments which have no basis in reality, the selfishness, the meanness, the judging.</p>
<p>Musicmom and tom1944, I liked your posts. You two are nicer than me.</p>
<p>I’ve heard second hand but from a reliable source that many with addiction issues are on ss disability. I have not idea how hard it is for them to get this however.</p>
<p>I think that if I or someone I loved was on disability, I would be angry there were people committing fraud to get onto the program, and making people question those who are on it legitimately. The rising rate of people on disability since the recession starts, is significant. The answer is not just giving benefits to anyone who desires it and to never question it, but to increase benefits and make it easier to get for those who really need it, while totally cracking down on fraud, so as to discourage people from trying to commit it.</p>
<p>If they know where the districts are where people are likely to commit fraud, then it seems they know where to start looking.</p>
<p>I did not see the show, and I am curious about how “fraud” is defined. When I complete the forms, I am not thinking people are “lying”, but rather how the whole process influences ones perception of their illness. I don’t think I can state it very well. Among the examples are foster parents who get reimbursed at a higher rate for kids who are more Impaired. Of course that’s fair, but if they see the child as more impaired then other reasonable sources, you have to wonder.</p>
<p>dstark, I have my angrier days, for sure.</p>
<p>In honor of Easter Sunday, I’m attempting a ‘nicer’ day. :)</p>