This Welfare-Warfare State's Gonna be the Death of Me

It hasn't been very comfortable writing this narrative; it has an unavoidable self-serving quality that bothers me. Still, while this is in part my way of stuffing a message in a bottle for the world to see, I'm definitely thinking of the needs and interests of others...especially those who will find themselves in my place at some point. While you may know or suspect much about the situation at hand, I can supply some firsthand nuts-and-bolts experience that should fill in a few gaps in your knowledge base. Think of it as a warning.

I had some useful advice for healthy people a while back: never, ever become disabled.

Tongue in cheek advice, to be sure; obviously no one can prevent a disabling disease from striking if it's in the cards. In my case, it's multiple sclerosis, a progressive and frequently debilitating neurological disease that has no cure. For many varieties of the disorder, there's not even an existing treatment to ameliorate its unpleasant symptoms, a number of which are extremely limiting and/or painful. Some are simply mortifying to the person afflicted, crushing dignity along with ability as thoroughly as the others do.

As I recounted in my previous article, when it became clear that I'd reached the point of being unable to work several years ago, I embarked on the quest to qualify for permanent disability status, a gauntlet that took nearly a year and a half to run, consumed all of my resources, and brought me to the brink of losing my home. I was one of the lucky ones, the favorable decision from Social Security came through before I was completely ruined. I'm sure many others who find themselves in a similar position, forced to deal with that agency's systemic delays, obfuscations and frequent uncaring incompetence likely won't fare as well.

By 2010, my ability to get around on foot had deteriorated to the point that I was falling with some regularity, even though I was using a four-wheeled walker for stability. My neurologist declared I needed a power wheelchair and though the prospect of being wheelchair bound was unpleasant, I couldn't argue with her. As it happened, the process wasn't a fraction as draining as qualifying for disability had been, largely because it was an internal matter between my doctor and Medicare. She submitted the correct paperwork, filled out in the manner she knew was needed to assure Medicare's approval, and that was that.

Unfortunately, three days before my new chair's delivery, my bad left leg gave out while hobbling along with my walker in my living room, causing a spill to the floor and spraining my left foot, ankle and knee. I was able to get myself to my desk using the walker for support, but there I stayed. When the shock from the fall wore off, I couldn't put weight on that leg, and I spent three long days in my living room until my chair arrived.

This incident changed the entire paradigm for me. Until the moment I fell I'd been planning to fit my Honda with a hitch mounted wheelchair lift, an annoying but not insurmountable expense. When traveling, I could make the short distance from the rear of my vehicle to the driver's seat and back on foot with some care, using it to support myself. Whole swaths of my life that my affliction had taken from me for years would now be returned, from being able to dine in a restaurant or enjoying a day at the park to errands like shopping, getting new eyeglasses, and getting to physicians...or so I thought.

Medicare did pay for three months of therapy, but I never came back from that fall, and the physical and occupational therapists reluctantly gave up on me when the agency decided it was no longer willing to fund further efforts on my behalf. I didn't think much about this at the time, but it was a portent of things to come.

Some research on my part quickly showed the only workable solution: modifying my vehicle for wheelchair access. As it turns out, there was some good news: the Honda Element I own outright is one of the most suitable vehicles for modification, so half the battle was already over.

Well, it would be if Medicare was willing to pay for the conversion...but it's not.

Oh, wading through mountains of dreary legalese tells you that under certain circumstances, say, needing a handicap accessible vehicle to return to work (and becoming a taxpayer again...how convenient), Medicare may consider paying for a small portion of the conversion, but 'just' restoring a disabled person's life as much as possible is considered a luxury or frivolity.

Here we see a perfect example of why government disability 'insurance' is anything but: real insurance is all about loss restoration in the event of some cataclysmic event. If you purchase a comprehensive policy from a private insurer, it's comprehensive. You pay the insurance company premiums based on the risk of loss, referenced to actuarial tables drawn from real world data. In theory those premiums should be relatively low for coverage for permanent disability and even lower for cases like mine of profound disability where an expensive aid or appliance becomes necessary to restore a person's quality of life. That's because statistically speaking, very few people are fully disabled, and even fewer are affected to the degree I am. When the State forcibly dominates a market, then allows rampant waste, fraud and abuse to drive its costs unnaturally high because it doesn't have the incentives to control them that a private concern has, you can expect distortions like these. At the same time, it consistently stagnates or diminishes peoples' real earnings through the invisible tax of inflation so most can't afford better private alternatives to its product (on top of life's other necessities), as it has for many years, compounding the problem.

I should have known there'd be no help from the government beyond what they deigned to provide. It knows it only needs deliver the barest minimum to most disabled people in order to maintain the illusion of its beneficence, which of course is just one tool in its bag of tricks to secure the ongoing consent of the governed. I hate needing anything; as an adherent of the Austrian school of economics and a staunch believer in genuinely free markets I'm appalled at my dependence on these wealth transfers...resources pilfered from productive people...but there's no alternative since I'm no longer capable of productive work and the system ran me into the ground just getting here.

Nothing would please me more than being able to finance this conversion myself, but with my savings gone, a meager disability income, and an inflexible mortgage company to deal with, it's impossible until years from now when my home is paid off. Given the progressive disability from MS, my ability to drive could easily be gone by then. The government's silence about this tells me all I need to know, that my life in any meaningful sense may be over at age 50.

My experience shows the stark fact that apart from the income and wheelchair, everything else the government provides is also some form of wealth transfer, just never to me as an individual. Medicare won't spend the roughly $25,000 needed to modify my Honda to remove the very real danger of splitting my skull in a fall when I have to go out...a hazard that they know perfectly well gets likelier as time passes...but they'll cheerfully pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for medical care If I do fall (and survive). Medicare won't spend a dime for the wheelchair ramps in my home that enable me to get around it (thank goodness the charitable Civitan Club built me some ramps a few years back!), nor will they be responsible for adaptive daily living aids such as grab bars, shower chairs or vehicle lifts...but they never raised an eyebrow at three months worth of failed therapy after that fall in my living room.

Get the picture? Apart from the wheelchair, Medicare just isn't inclined to provide you with durable goods at all, or will only pay partial costs of less expensive items...even items that can prevent dangerous or fatal accidents. I'm not...and no doubt never will be...an expert on the intricacies of dealing with Medicare, I'm just the schnook who found himself disabled and forced to rely on them. When I consider that this is the same government that brought us the IRS, indiscriminately applies asset forfeiture to everything it can get its grubby mitts on, and has put so many fiddling laws on the books in general that just about everybody is some sort of criminal since many of those laws overlap or even contradict one another, I get the shivering horrors.

The welfare state's put me in a tidy box, but how is the warfare state a threat to me as a disabled person?

As you probably suspect by now, I'm talking about the War On Drugs.

With one exception, the dietary medicine I use to ease the problems with spastic bowels caused by MS, all of the prescription drugs I require are considered controlled substances. Because of this, I'm automatically considered a possible suspect in drug abuse or trafficking, especially because I'm reliant on pain medication. It's most critical at night to deal with neuropathic pain so I can sleep properly, but there are some days when it's needed if I want to function at all. Horror stories of both doctors and patients assaulted by drug enforcement officials abound. As such, I am required to personally appear in my doctor's office regularly to obtain current prescriptions.

This requirement is beyond annoying, it's life threatening. Consider that each doctor's visit means a minimum of four transfers: from my power wheelchair to my vehicle, then to a manual wheelchair at the destination, with the reverse operation once I return home. Getting in and out of a vehicle can be performed without thinking by healthy people and even by many disabled people, but for me it feels like roller skating on the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Since I've had difficulty explaining this to healthy people, I made a short video to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Have a look at me just transferring from my wheelchair to a sofa in my own living room if you're inclined. Remember that this gets even more dangerous with time; each progression of my disorder, no matter how small, worsens my ability to do anything when out of my chair.

So, after causing me to waste all of my savings and resources just to qualify as a disabled person while the bureaucrats fiddled, the Welfare State hasn't felt my life worth restoring and left me essentially a prisoner in my home. Charities are so overregulated and underfunded that none I've yet contacted can help me, and by still compelling me to travel regularly the Warfare State completes the blitzkrieg pincers of a trap that could well kill me.

I have no intention of simply waiting to die because my government considers me a 'useless eater,' so I'm exploring alternatives all the time, and will continue to do so. If you, a spouse, a family member or friend ever has a hint of approaching disability, prepare to be treated the same way as I've been. Circle the wagons and protect your assets as best you can...you'll need them. I wish I'd been better able to protect my own, but once I'd been thrown out of work, things happened so fast it was like getting mugged in an alley.

One thing's certain: when my mobility is restored it will be thanks to the generosity of private individuals, not Mommy Government. Its maternal instincts are about as warm and fuzzy as those of a pit viper.