Continuing the long running log of the personal Collapse of my meat package, yesterday I received my Approval of my application for Medicaid assistance from the state of Alaska, which serves as my secondary Insurance to federal Medicare and together fully cover about all my major med expenses like the quite expensive operations and extended hospital stays I have had for the last 8 years or so, since my work accident took me out of the working world in 2015.  It's also the coverage that pays the exorbitant monthly charges racked up if you reside in a Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF,pronounced "sniff") or Assisted Care Living (ACL)gulag (pronounced "ackle").

Price for my current monthly SNF abode is 16K, of which up to now 15K of which has been paid by Medicare & Medicade combined, splitting the cost for $7500 each.  Now however they no longer consider me disabled enough to require a SNF, and I am switched to the Medicaid Waver program. In this program, they determine your Monthly contribution to your care by subtracting $200 from whatever your total monthly SS and Pension is and that is what you pay for your living situation, and Medicaid pays the rest.  So from now until I find a new abode, I am left with just $200/mo spending money.

Now, the ACL cost around here runs cheaper than SNFs, between around $6000/mo for the cheapest dumps to $8500 for the ritzier ones.  The thing is, there is no benefit to me to leave here where it costs $16K even to go to the cheapest ACK, because I still would be left with just $200/mo.  So, I won't leave here to go to another ACL gulag, and they can't kick me out until I have alternative housing and a daily health care assistant lined up.

So I am now hunting for a house or apartment in Anchorage I can afford, which for me is around $1200/mo or less.  I could go more if utilities are included.  Currently the apt rental market is pretty tight for 1 bedrooms, but what I am now looking for is a 3-4 bedroom house to share with a CNA here I am friends with.  She has 2 kids and a boyfriend, currently wedged into a 2 bedroom apt.  Together, we can afford the market rate for McMansions, going for 2-3K/month.  The tough part here is finding a place which is wheelchair accessible, or can be made so without too much cost.

I also applied for Cook Inlet Housing, which is a Native run corporation but the housing is open to anyone 62 and older and/or disabled, aka me.  Rent is on a sliding scale dependent on your income, I should come in around $1000/mo.  Problem here is a long wait list estimated at 6-18 months.  I have been on it for 3 so far.

The good newz here is I am pretty safe from becoming a HHS anytime soon; bad newz is that until I do find new digs I have only $200/mo spending money, which is impossibly low for me.  So I'll be eating into my savings until I find a place.  I do expect pressure from Medicaid at some point to move out of here to a cheaper ACL until I find an independent living situation, I don't think they want to keep coughing up the 13K or so difference to keep me lodged here now that Medicare will not pick up half the bill.  I'll report if I start getting any pressure of that sort as time goes by here.

RE

Quote from: Knarf on Aug 04, 2023, 05:58 AMIt is always interesting for me to read your posts. Having played the monk game has worked about the same for me. I have $6000 in the bank and only get $700 from SS. I developed acute Peripheral Neuropathy a couple years ago. I am in pain 24/7 and fatigue and sleep problems...I will be 71 next month. Collapse is an appropriate word for how my meat package is. I probably will be gone before the "great culling". I sure hope the aliens land, and force change on the Homo Saps. Maybe I can get my head frozen when I die and they can clone me in 2400, for a day, no more....back to eternal ?.

Great to hear from you Knarf!

Peripheral Neuropathy is also among my numerous meat package problems, and I have similar pain and sleep issues.  I'm 5 years your junior at 66, but the work accident accelerated my physiological progress toward my voyage to the Great Beyond so we are more or less in the same condition.  Of course I am also missing one leg which limits my mobility, but I have a good electric wheelchair and outdoor electric scooter, so I can get around OK as far as I need to, which is not much,

I find little reason to leave my small room, which I have nicely set up with my computers, a big screen TV and my electric recliner, which I sit in when not rolling around the facility on my wheelchair.  I sleep in it also insofar as I sleep, which is only for a couple of hours at a stretch a couple of times a day.  I get 3 meals a day delivered to the room, and the food while not great is edible about 1/3 of the time.  I supplement this food with food I buy at Fred Myer and keep in a small fridge like in a college dorm room.  In fact the room is just about the same size as my old collegge dorm rooms.  The girls are not as attractive however, not even the young Filipina CNAs. lol.

I also get delivered every 4 hours or so some kind of meds on my list of pharmacopaea, which includes stool softeners to make for easier shitting and a statin to keep the cholesterol level down, as well as the Pain meds of course.  They recently referred me out to a Pain Clinic, because the in house supervising doctor wanted to offload the responsibility of prescribing opiates. Not good for his licensing record or malpractice insurance. I was getting oxycodone 10mg and 1000mg tylenol 3X/day which was controlling the pain pretty well, but the pain doctor dropped me to 7.5mg oxy/850mg tylenol and added 500mg Lyrica 2X day for nerve based pain.  This stuff is good for the neuropathy based pain, you should ask your doc about it if you are not already taking it.  Doesn't help me though with my other pain source coming from the circulation problems in my remaining leg.  Need the opiates for that, and next visit with the pain doc I will be pushing to get back to 10mg or get my dose 4X/day.

I also doubt I'll be around for the great HS population knockdown, at least in the FSoA, but I do hope to remain above ground long enough to see the collapse of the monetary and banking system, and see what follows it to keep the elites in power a while longer.  I'm not too hopeful of a cavalry style rescue by Aliens dropping into our solar system from hyperspace in the nick of time.

Anyhow. keep us updated on life in the monastery and how the Show Me state is holding up to climate change. 

RE

I got no relief from Gabapentin.  As nerve blockers go, the Lyrica works better,  Medical Weed doesn't work for me either.  Never tried Kratom, no ifra where I would get it.

RE

Latest newz on moving out, the folks who said they were interested in sharing a house have backed out.  This does not surprise me, quite often the folks in the care giver biz will tell an oldster what they think they want to hear, or make promises they don't think they will ever have to keep.  When the time comes and it becomes real, the tide runs out and they are revealed to be swimming naked.

So now I'm back to looking for 1 or 2 bedroom places in my price range, and this could take a while.  My big challenge right now is to curb my appetites and stop spending money on ice cream, brownies, deli meats and cheeses to supplement the yucky food they serve here and cancerettes.  I'm going to enjoy this last month until my birthday on August 31st and then do my best to cut back to the $200/mo they let me keep for pocket money.

Any Diners want to send me a birthday present, you can send me some cancerettes.  Marlboro Black 100s. I'll send you the address in a PM if you are feeling so generous. 

RE

OK, I'm stuck here at least for the time being, with all my basic needs on Maslow's hierarchy covered, but left by Medicaid with just $200/mo to cover anything above that.  Truthfully, more than just food, water and shelter are covered, I also have 60 channels of cable to watch and free internet.  Also a room with some weights and therabands where I go in to do some therapy.

However, since quitting booze, I drink about a 6 pack of Coke/day which costs $7.  That is $210 right there.  My cell phone bill is $30/mo.  I buy a couple of quarts of coffee ice cream and a couple of cans of whipped cream a month for another 25.  I buy some cold cuts and cheese to make sandwiches with when the food they serve is unappetizing, another $30.  I buy brownies or mini blueberry muffins to have with my coffee. I buy some toys on Amazon. And of course my smokes, which I will probably have to quit again.

Since I don't really want to quit smoking  or buying toys, I am seriously considering getting on the bus to another part of town and doing some pan handlinng,  I have read some guys pull in 6 figures this way.  With an amputated leg I figure I am a cinch to pull in $20K in the summer months.  I'm always asked if I am a Vet, usually I say no but they love the military up here so I'll make up a story about having it blown off by an IAD in Nam or sliced off by a Helicopter blade. lol.

Opinions?

RE

Quote from: RE on Aug 07, 2023, 04:30 AMOpinions?
RE

PM me your mailing address and I'll send you a couple bucks. If nothing else, it saves you the hassle of traveling across town just to force the normies to pretend you aren't there most of the time. Alternatively, do you have a PayPal account or anything like that?

Quote from: TDoS on Aug 07, 2023, 03:00 PM

Quote from: RE on Aug 07, 2023, 04:30 AMOpinions?
RE

PM me your mailing address and I'll send you a couple bucks. If nothing else, it saves you the hassle of traveling across town just to force the normies to pretend you aren't there most of the time. Alternatively, do you have a PayPal account or anything like that?

Muchos Gracias!  I PMed my addy.

RE

It is a horrible thing being without the comfort and security of a stable place, X2 when you are a senior citizen. I get the seniors discount myself but have the security of a place to finish out my life without much worry so long as I keep the taxes paid. I have seen people (seniors)who live in their car in rural Alberta, I don't know how they do it, I know I couldn't.

Quote from: 18hammers on Aug 08, 2023, 08:12 PMIt is a horrible thing being without the comfort and security of a stable place, X2 when you are a senior citizen. I get the seniors discount myself but have the security of a place to finish out my life without much worry so long as I keep the taxes paid. I have seen people (seniors)who live in their car in rural Alberta, I don't know how they do it, I know I couldn't.

Right now I'm not in danger of being without a roof, Medicaid is paying most of the exorbitant $16K/mo it takes to keep me housed in this SNF, and legally they can't evict me until suitable alternative accomodations are found.  The problem is as long as I am here, they take every penny of my retirement checks save $200 in pocket money for the month.

If I had to move into my car I would be in trouble, since I got rid of both of them.  I wasn't using them and every time I have had to move they were causing me problems.  Also since I wasn't using them the batteries were dying all the time.

No idea how long finding a new place is going to take.  I'm on 3 waiting lists of housing agencies, and I've been looking on craigslist and rent.com.  Problem there is they all want application fees now in the $50 range.  I don't have that money to spare. I alao have problems getting transportation to go look at places.  So it's a real problem getting out of here.

RE

QuoteTeach a man to fish and you feed him for a
lifetime.  Give a man a fish, then what.  He has your fish. You have a
story, but no one cares about your story.

If you manage to get to where Anchorage panhandlers are raking it in, you will have great stories for the Diner.

I should add Diner to our name I think. 

See : https://www.buymeacoffee.com/KDog  Sign up for an account and let me know when you do.  I have one on my web page.  In two years I have been gifted $31.

   

When you get the embed code I will set up a link at the top of the page next to our banner with the cup , 'RE's smokes, contributions are welcome.

* When this all gets done, some articles critical of NATO might be worth a carton or two.

Find out what happened to Bentley?


Keep all the proceeds.  I'm a worker .   With both legs so far.  I can support my bad habits.

I don't know this guy, have not seen him before, don't know when that video was produced but know he is lying through his teeth about some of the things he is saying about Donetsk (and area). I say that as someone who has been there.

The video is 7 years old.  Russell was there before Putin invaded.

Update:  I did the work to add the RE smoke fund.  The link goes to my page until RE tells me he has an account.  It has to go somewhere.

RE: Let us know if panhandling works out.

Same here, not been there since but can say it was not like he is going on about regarding water,energy system and distribution from about 16 minutes on in the video. Claiming power rarely goes out, bull shit, not two or three weeks won't go by with out a failure either a dip or off for a 1/2 hour or so. Not really a problem, only a problem if it dosn't come back on as they would say, but power hicups not unusual.
 No one drinks the water period! you will get sick, everyone drinks bottled water, The Donetsk water reservoir (its bank) was a popular spot for picknick's, no facilities, I have pissed in the grass myself that gets washed into the reservoir, no one drinks that water, and his going on about hot water distribution to all flats,  what was more typical was the hot water boilers were all shut down through the summer thus no hot water at all for at least 2 months (some people could afford and install gas on demand heaters and newest construction had there own water heaters).
 Claiming a 100X greater efficiency by a single hot water boiler...bull shit, there are more boilers heating hot water in that city than I have fingers to count them and the theory  of district heating was fine in theory but the practice proved different. I could go on but no point, I would question all he has to say.

I got to add, just cause its so blatantly wrong, his comment about rural well water being fine to drink, I can only say maybe somewhere in that area you might find a good well but in that part of the country due to both mining and steel refining I would consider all well water suspect. I kid you not slag heaps so high you would think they are mountains and the rain run off from those slag heaps gets into the ground water. People still use it but only because they have no choice.

OK, for those of you Diners wishing to chip in for smokes and other essentials to keep me semi-sane here while the FRN retirement income I spent 40 years working as a wage slave to earn is being snatched from me by the sick care industry, I do have a PayPal acct you can pitch some pennies at.  I have one regular contributor from the Diner days who still sends me $10/mo.  My PayPal Acct handle is:

paypal.me/kollapsnik

I am also considering setting up a GoFundMe page for a State of the Art Bionic Leg that actually WORKS, as opposed to the crappy one Medicaid bought for $26K which is worthless.  Pegleg with a Piano Hinge.  There's a REASON you never see cripples with an Above the Knee (ATK) amputation walking around, the prosthetics are dogshit.

Here's the leg I want.  Not sure the price, I'll take a WAG at $300K.

https://youtu.be/hCR4Gv2k4PM

I reserve the right to spend some of the money just for other needed devices like lift chairs, ev devices etc until I have enough for the Big Kahuna.

RE