Posted on 10/26/2009 5:06:25 PM PDT by The Magical Mischief Tour
Residents who receive a Social Security check, or know someone who does, may have been in shock this month.
100,000 People No Longer Qualified For TennCare To Pay Their Medicare Premiums
The amount of those checks was substantially less than expected, leaving those on already tight budgets with some problems. "Somebody basically stole $290 from me this month, and not telling me it was going to happen until just a week, or so, before it did," said Social Security recipient Gayla Groom. Groom lives in Lewis County and struggles to live on Social Security disability checks. This month is even tougher because she's receiving nearly $300 less than normal, she says thanks to an error by the state of Tennessee. "What it means to me is that I don't have any money to do any of the other things I was going to do this month, like buy groceries, buy dog food or get a hair cut. I don't have money to put gas in my car. I don't have money to get my prescription filled," said Groom.
The Tennessee Health Care Campaign, a healthcare watchdog group, confirms that Groom and about 100,000 others in Tennessee were notified that after July they no longer qualified for TennCare to pay their Medicare medical insurance premiums.
But a number of those recipients weren't notified until September. They didn't have time to cancel their Medicare, so the premiums for August and September were taken out of their October checks. "Social Security people I guess said, 'We're not going to get the money for August and September from the state, so we'll just take it from the people we can just take out real easy,'" said Groom. The Tennessee health care campaign said TennCare officials should have notified everyone earlier to avoid leaving people short this month.
TennCare officials said they sent letters 20 days before termination, and that it's an ongoing process. Social Security officials are also looking into the matter. In meantime, many people like Groom are left in a bind this month and unable to afford to pay for the insurance they lost. "What they should have done at the very least is offered us a payment plan like $20-40 a month," said Groom. Groom said she never got a termination letter from TennCare. Officials are looking into that matter.
Hmmmm - government run health care - who would have known????
More hope and change...hope y’all are happy out there in lu lu land...my mother’s check is due soon and will see if she gets a cut as well...
When are you guys putting an end to Tenncare?
honey that wasn’t your $290 to begin with...
I thought that my Socialist Security was going down, thank Obama it is still the same.
Taking the money back is method of taking freedom ... this is just the start. One Crap and Tax, then Obamacare passes, they are going to dig deep into everyone’s pockets ... when we have less money of our own, we have less freedom to do what we want ... simply because we can’t afford it ...
Whether it was her money or not, it is a sign of things to come. The government is TAKE TAKE TAKE
Wow!
Ol' Gayla is getting free money from everyone who pays taxes and she talks about theft?
What hypocrisy!
mmm___ mmm____mmm! Anything the Goverment gives you, they can take away
I thought Baraq was gonna pay her gas and mortgage?
Thank the Dems folks... they’re spending those funds “elsewhere”
But Obammy was going to give everyone free everything!? What gives!? I want more free stuff!!!!!!
Let’s not be too quick to holler that’s “not her money”. We don’t know anything about her past or the nature of her disability. For all we know, she could be someone who worked hard and paid into Social Security and Medicare for 30+ years and then got mowed down by a drunk driver and left with disabling injuries. Yes, there are a LOT of SSI recipients who paid little or nothing into the system before coming down with some self-inflicted or faked disability, but there are a number of legitimate recipients too, some of whom paid in more than they’ll ever get out.
Worthless, useless ingrate.
“Someone stole $290 dollars from me...”
Ummm, not really. You took $290 taxpayer dollars less that month.
All these government run ponzi schemes that pit taxpayer against taxreceivers really piss me off. This whole making people dependent on government, who robs others to pay welfare to others and then is the hero, pisses me off to no end.
It is extremely difficult to pay more in than you take out, unless you are very rich, or you die before you ever can use it. All the people who are 65 and over will get way more out of it than they ever put in, based on wages when they started working.
But you know it is a ponzi scheme anyway, right?
and to all the others slamming Magical. Give it a break you do not know what people have already paid into these programs or the whole story. Give us on disability and SS a break. We know no one else is helping us oldsters.
make your excuses on kos, socialist
you dont work, you dont eat
and you certainly dont get to steal my money for some old ladies pills
Agreed. By strange chance, both of my parents ended up being disabled when I was a child (one to a brain tumor and a work injury as a nurse, and the other to recurrent cancer), and SSI + WIC was all we had. They were both the kind of people who worked very hard up until the day that they no longer could and were not proud to be getting government checks, but it was all we had. After they died, the checks continued to come to my legal guardians and I was told that I would receive them as long as I remained a full time student, but I didn't want to live on the government dollar anymore, so I went out and got a job and have been going to college part time for the last 15 years earning my degree on my own.
Maybe this lady is a welfare queen, and maybe she's not; we may never know for sure.
i get so sick and tired of socialists coming on our sites and telling us it is ok to have socialism and communism-run pill and check scams because you are getting the pills and checks
that money comes from our wallets
2010 the great rollback begins, and 2012 will give us a true CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENT
THE PEOPLE are not putting up with this nonsense anymore. no more programs, and SMASH GOVERNMENT the programs are out the door soon
be nice to your kids, that is who will be taking care of you financially when we conservatives take back the country
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