Lauren Peery
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be-wilder.bsky.social
Lauren Peery
@be-wilder.bsky.social
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be-wilder.bsky.social
My real-world example of how our federal Medicaid tax dollars are spent
While I'm being transparent, I also want to shine light on real-world examples of how our federal Medicaid dollars are spent. When I was pregnant during the pandemic, never in my wildest dreams did I expect to go into preterm labor, be rushed 4 hours away to the state's best children's hospital, deliver my 2.2 lb babies 13 weeks early via emergency c-section, and spend 99 days in the Ronald McDonald House while my twins were incubating in the NICU. I called and enrolled them in Medicaid the same day they were born, because any child who spends a month or more in the hospital automatically qualifies. The cost was over $1.6 million dollars for both of them. That doesn't include my week-long hospital stay before they were born, or the hour-long cardiac catheterization to close the hole in my daughter's heart that cost $100K. How could anyone but the ultra wealthy even fathom paying such medical bills?? Idk, I'm not saying the system is perfect but I also can't imagine coming home with two brand new babies and almost 2 mil in debt. I really pray that isn't the future we're heading toward. Breakdown of extremely premature baby's medical bill for 99 day NICU stay total is $884,925.67 Breakdown of extremely premature baby's medical bill for 90 day NICU stay total is $762,887.18
March 22, 2025 at 9:51 PM
be-wilder.bsky.social
My experience using the updated SSA online service
This week I had to file appeals to SSA for my twins who are still on low birth weight disability, because in late January the agency factored our tax refunds into our resources for all last year, saying we owe back thousands of dollars (SSA excludes tax refunds including EITC and CTC for 12 months from the month of receipt). Anyway, the updated website requires two-factor authentication via text every time even if you click 'remember this browser', glitches with 'loading' errors on certain pages that eventually went away, and the website times out every 5-10 minutes forcing you to re-login and start over each time. It took me at least ten+ tries to get through this straightforward process, which I finally did by reporting that I have paper document evidence because uploading the digital files kept timing out within that 5-10 minute window. I'm a tech savvy millennial and I was screaming in frustration -- I can't imagine many senior citizens being able to navigate the system based on how it currently functions. :(
March 22, 2025 at 8:52 PM