Living in the South (USA)

Channel 4 Nashville acted on my press release and came down and interviewed me for the evening news. Here’s the link. The story is about how the Social Security Administration (SSA) deducted three months’ Medicare premiums from October social security benefits of hundreds of Tennesseans—because the state of Tennessee was three months late in informing the SSA it would no longer pay those premiums (generally because the social security recipient was no longer eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare).

I thought the reporter did a great job as far as it went. But when he talked to TennCare (who were paying the Medicare premium) for input to the story, they apparently made it sound like it was all my fault—since Tenncare apparently notified me they weren’t going to pay the premium after a certain point (although I can’t recall it). Anyway, the reporter apparently lost interest, and I felt like he thought I was lying, which I was not, and I felt that he missed the whole point, after he talked to TennCare.

The point is that the state of TN may have told ME they were going to stop paying Medicare premiums, but they didn’t tell the Social Security Administration; they MADE A MISTAKE by telling the SSA several months late.

And it’s the SSA who are in charge of letting me know about medicare deductions that are going to be withheld from my social security payment. And the SSA DID NOT GIVE PROPER NOTICE TO ME BY LAW. They were three months late with the notice (they blame the state for not telling them sooner that they were going to stop paying–HOW IS THAT MY FAULT?), and they are charging us three months of premiums at once, which is crippling.

I was worn out by the experience, and have been slowly girding my loins to take back up where the reporter dropped the ball and actually find out who’s responsible for this outrage. My resolve took a big step forward today when I discovered that this Social Security screw-over apparently was not just a one-month thing, but it is apparently being done to some people’s DECEMBER BENEFITS. Did they do it to people’s November benefits, too?

Listen to this poor lady’s story:

I just got my letter!!!!! So my Dec. check will be cut! So how in the world can my kids have christmas…288.80 is the amount,my husbend is a contractor need I say more…in our refig…we have a pack of chicken and some lunch meat. He trying to get on at the coal mines. Thanks uncel Sam…you got your stimulus money back!!! Now go bell out the banks that are charing us the poor 27% for a long on are cars and house payment have gone up cause of the ballon rate…we too will be homeless my enter net will be turned off. I have cut back on so much what next…Now no ins. no meds. I hope the rich sleep well tonight! my brother keeper yeah have a great christmas! I have no money for sure now!

I can remember a time we went on two vac. a year…not in five years have we know the word vac.
My son has two pears of pants my other son is trying to get through collage…but his pale grants have not kicked in thank you God…for the help of kind family members to help with this! My kids will go to collage It was never a option for me no car no family to help and not walking distance…Plus I never had any resorces and I have dislexic…just started reading not long ago…My children don’t miss a day of school unless running a fevor!!! the poor uneducated and disabled have no hope!—original here

If this is being done to hundreds or thousands of people, it should be easy to find an attorney to file a class-action lawsuit on our behalf. I hope anyone who has suffered as a result of this mistreatment by the Social Security Administration will let me know.

Below is a news release I sent out yesterday to various media and elected representatives. When I first found out the government was stealing $290 from me (and hundreds of other Tennesseans) this month and that I was powerless to stop it, I got angry.

But then I figured if I couldn’t have the money, at least I could put the facts out there and see if justice, or at least revenge, was possible.

It brought me in mind of the saying, “Revenge is a dish best served cold.” I could think of several interpretations, so checked Wikipedia to see the commonly accepted meaning:

The proverb suggests that revenge is more satisfying as a considered response enacted when unexpected, or long feared, inverting the more traditional revulsion toward ‘cold-blooded’ violence.

Anyway, knowing how to write and distribute a press release is a great skill to learn. (I’ll tell you how to do it in a future post, and there’s good info elsewhere.) I’m hoping that the government bureaucrats who stole my money will get a little more attention than they bargained for.

October 23, 2009. For immediate release.

NEWS RELEASE

SKULDUGGERY IN TENNESSEE

State Makes Mistake, Feds Take It Out

of Poorest Tennesseans’ Social Security Disability Benefits

TENNESSEE—With almost no notice, hundreds of the poorest of Tennessee’s social security disability recipients had three months of Medicare premiums deducted from their October benefits. At a minimum of $289.80 deducted, that leaves many recipients struggling to get by on three-quarters or less of their usual monthly income.

According to several representatives at the U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA) office in Lawrenceburg, TN, the State of Tennessee was two months late in informing the SSA that they were stopping paying the Medicare premiums for these social security recipients. (They stopped paying because these recipients became ineligible for Medicaid. Recipients become ineligible for Medicaid when their benefits/income equal more than a certain amount (still “very low income”).)

Lawrenceburg SSA officials say that the State neglected to inform TN SSA offices of their intention to not pay for July and August until after July and August had already passed. (Recipients themselves were not informed by the State at all.)

At that point, a decision was made, apparently somewhere in the Tennessee SSA state office, that the premiums for both those months, plus the premium for September, would be deducted from each social security recipient’s October monthly social security benefit. Notices went out to those affected, dated September 3, but without a postmark, and commonly not arriving until the third week of September, saying that the July and August premium amounts, plus the September premium amount, would be withheld from October benefits.

Social security recipients have been overwhelmed with problems as a result of this “likely illegal” action. “You’d hope the government would be straight enough to eat their own mistake instead of putting it on us in this inhumane way,” said social security disability recipient Gayla Groom of Summertown, TN. “I sure would like to know who is responsible for the SSA’s decision to pass the State’s mistake along to TN social security recipients. I’d like to take half that guy’s income this month. I don’t know how I’m going to feed my animals or myself having $290 stolen from me just like that.”

Groom attempted to cancel her Medicare coverage when she discovered the State was no longer paying. (“I couldn’t afford the premium plus the co-pay.”) According to the notice mailed to social security recipients:

If you cancel within 30 days of the date of this letter we will stop your medical insurance at the same time the State stopped paying your premium.

This standard language is intended to protect recipients’ rights, so they are not forced to pay for coverage they don’t want and/or can’t afford. But when Groom tried to choose that option, she met with no success. “The SSA position in Tennessee is that if you used Medicare in July or August, then you have to pay these premiums, and no reimbursement is possible. This is true even though recipients fully believed the state was paying the premiums for July and August, and even though they would not have been able to afford to keep Medicare if they had to make payments.”

“And why did the SSA have to take it all out at once?” Groom asks. “What a low blow! It’s like the government thinks it needs that $290 more than I do.”

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This is my favorite chicken, whom I call Chicken Lady. She used to belong to my neighbor, but she eventually moved into my carport instead. She has a lot of moxie; she will come in through the front door or the cat door given any chance at all. This video I took yesterday shows about 2 minutes in our relationship.

I like her a lot, but every night at twilight she was settling in atop my air conditioner, you know how they stick out the window. It turns out that air conditioners have vents in the top, and also that chickens have a “vent” called the “cloaca,” which has two channels: one for eggs to come out and one for everything else to come out. Now, Lady Chicken is laying eggs in the big doghouse, so no worries there, relatively speaking. But the “everything else” just tends to come out wherever a chicken is, for instance atop my air conditioner.

So she had to stop sleeping there. But—and this is the main problem with living on Earth—if I move her, I could cause disaster for my chicken friend. I mean, she picked the air conditioner as a nighttime spot because she thought it was safe. Who am I to figure out what is safe for a chicken outdoors at night? She could die because I don’t want chicken shit in my air conditioner. I make a ton of decisions like this every day, like do I rescue the big bug that three cats are poised to tear apart? Who knows.

So anyway, I cleaned up the carport (and my yard!) the other day, and rearranged some shelves to try to make an appealing area for Chicken Lady next to but not on the air conditioner. And then I put heavy stuff atop the air conditioner to crowd Chicken Lady out. She spent the first couple nights successfully knocking some of the heavy stuff off, and settling into a smaller air conditioner space, so I had to escalate and pile a bunch more stuff. She finally gave up; last night she settled in the carport atop a small ice chest I had arranged atop a shelf; I don’t know if she’ll be safe or raccoon-food. And meanwhile where’s my order of Chicken Nuggets?

I arrived home this morning to find this sign (from my daughter) on my door:

I have a lot of holes in my house, and I live in the woods, and things crawl into my house all the time. I’m trying to fix it; see “Fixing My House” category in this blog.

But this wasn’t a tarantula. I think it was a wolf spider. They’re big babies. It’s sad to see how scared they get when you try to capture them. I’ve had big scary spiders just keel over and die when I was trying to help them get the hell out of my house. They have kind of cute little faces. But I do not like having spiders in my house. I want it to stop!

This guy/girl finally let me trap him/her in a bowl with a plate on top, and take him/her outside, up high away from the chickens. Once he/she was outside, he/she was like, What? I’m not dead? I’m outside? Everything’s cool? Weird! I could feel the happiness perking up from the spider. It’s what my friend Stephen calls “getting your donkey back”—from an old folk tale where some guy’s miserable, complaining all the time. Then someone steals the guy’s donkey and he becomes even more miserable. Then the thief brings the donkey back, and now the guy is super-happy!

I always think it must be like an alien abduction for the creature when we scoop him up and relocate him. Terrifying, loss of control and understanding, fear for one’s life, excess of novelty, etc. And then you end up miles from where you started, with your clothes on backwards.