I asked this board about filing for SSD in spite of the fact that I was receiving PA Unemployment benefits, and the general consensus was that it was no problem.
Since my problem was Bipolar Disorder/Asperger Syndrome, the likelihood that it would ever be approved seemed remote. Lo and behold, it gets approved without appeal. OK, great!
Not so great. The "Benefit" is $1200 a month. Since my doctors are out of network and I need to have insurance to cover my medications, I basically am spending $1000 a month of ~$2250 a month the state of PA is giving me on medical expenses which I can't tighten my belt on.
Problem right there. It'd be slightly less problematic if I could keep the $6000 in back benefits they're talking about giving me, but I have a sneaking suspicion PA is going to demand all of it to offset the monies they've paid out in unemployment. In fact, in my paranoia of paranoias, PA is going to demand back all of the money it paid out in UC over the period I should have been on disability. (~$12,000)
Worse, even though my therapist (dunno about the psychiatrist) thinks I need to get healthy by jumping back into the workforce, I'm likely to be penalized if I actually do manage to find a job. (In a world that was tailored to my needs, the SSD would stay in force without being paid out for 6 months to a year in case I flame out again, but my case is really not what they were thinking of when SSD was designed.)
So for all that, even though I have less than 16 weeks of EUC unemployment left, I'm actually inclined to say screw it and tell SSA "never mind, you should not have been involved in the first place".
So my questions are:
1) Is there any way to get more out of them? (Headhunters don't bat an eye at my salary demand of 75k-80k as a programmer, and it stands to reason that if I get healthy and functional like I was in the mid 2000s, I'll pay back into the system a fair amount over its lifetime...)
2) If not, is there any way to withdraw the application tactfully now that it has been approved?
3) Anybody got ANY other ideas?
Since my problem was Bipolar Disorder/Asperger Syndrome, the likelihood that it would ever be approved seemed remote. Lo and behold, it gets approved without appeal. OK, great!
Not so great. The "Benefit" is $1200 a month. Since my doctors are out of network and I need to have insurance to cover my medications, I basically am spending $1000 a month of ~$2250 a month the state of PA is giving me on medical expenses which I can't tighten my belt on.
Problem right there. It'd be slightly less problematic if I could keep the $6000 in back benefits they're talking about giving me, but I have a sneaking suspicion PA is going to demand all of it to offset the monies they've paid out in unemployment. In fact, in my paranoia of paranoias, PA is going to demand back all of the money it paid out in UC over the period I should have been on disability. (~$12,000)
Worse, even though my therapist (dunno about the psychiatrist) thinks I need to get healthy by jumping back into the workforce, I'm likely to be penalized if I actually do manage to find a job. (In a world that was tailored to my needs, the SSD would stay in force without being paid out for 6 months to a year in case I flame out again, but my case is really not what they were thinking of when SSD was designed.)
So for all that, even though I have less than 16 weeks of EUC unemployment left, I'm actually inclined to say screw it and tell SSA "never mind, you should not have been involved in the first place".
So my questions are:
1) Is there any way to get more out of them? (Headhunters don't bat an eye at my salary demand of 75k-80k as a programmer, and it stands to reason that if I get healthy and functional like I was in the mid 2000s, I'll pay back into the system a fair amount over its lifetime...)
2) If not, is there any way to withdraw the application tactfully now that it has been approved?
3) Anybody got ANY other ideas?