Blasting off once again

This morning was the much-dreaded appointment with Health and Human Services to make known to the government that my mother is on the verge of having no money and needs to become a member of the Medicaid System. The appointment was dreaded only because I knew from past experience with my father that I would be in a locked room with a social worker person who would speak slowly to me so that I would be sure to understand the complexities of the welfare bureaucracy for approximately three hours.

In anticipation of the appointment, I had gathered 15 months of bank statements, her birth certificate, dad's death certificate, proofs of medicare, Blue Cross, soc. sec. income, pension income, cost of Blue Cross, cost of Langdon Place, my photo i.d., durable power of attorney and her photo i.d. Fortunately, I called for the appointment one day before I put my recycling at the curb, and thus, when the social worker person said I would actually need bank statements going back to April, 2007, when I had enrolled dad, I was able to fish through all the paper (being glad we don't do single stream recycling) and pull out the requisite statements from April, 2007 to the present. They just needed to make sure I hadn't gifted anything to anyone from mom's bank account, or set up a a trust fund for myself, etc.

So . . . at nine o'clock I joined all the other folks in the waiting room at HHS where there is a lovely mural of a tranquil ocean scene complete with sailboats floating. There was a pregnant girl in sweatpants with her shirt not quite covering her belly and another young woman with bleached hair (sprayed red in front) and a tattoo on her chest which said "Brooklyn." I felt right at home. From behind bullet-proof glass, the social worker person called my name and told me to meet her in Room #1. The door locked behind me, and she entered from a door at the back of the room and we had a large countertop-type desk stretching from wall to wall in between us. (Just in case I wanted to leap across and. . . do what???) I wanted to assure her she was safe with me, but I figured if I had to be there for more than 3 hours, I wasn't sure she was safe with me!!

The appointment proceeded in textbook fashion, with me fishing out documents and passing them to her pile for photocopying. When she came to the stack of bank statements (which I'd like to add here I had put in precise order and clipped together by year - dad would have been super proud of me), she looked at every page, following the trail of the cashed out CDs. On the Sept., 2008 bank statement she stopped and said "What's this?" pointing to a check I had written to "Citizens Bank or Katherine Morgan." For the life of me, I couldn't imagine (at first) what that was all about, and I have to admit, it was peculiar. "Oh," I said, the light dawning, "I had to use this account to buy Euros for my trip to Italy." (Oh shit, I thought, that's never going to fly past this woman). "I paid it back," I said hastily. "No, actually, my mom owed me money for meds and supplies, so I subtracted what she owed me from what I had borrowed from her . . . . " I trailed off. Was this going to screw up the whole deal? A mere $208.00 transacation? "Oh, that's fine, she said, after a suitable pause where I'm sure she was recalling every other check I had written to myself throughout the entire two years of bank statements.

She gathered everything I had brought with me to take to photocopy, and before she left, she explained all of my/our rights and all of my responsibilities going forward, the penalty for perjuring myself on any of these forms and the possibility of jail time for a felony offense if I fail to notify them if my mom inherits any money, or when/if her income increases/decreases and any number of other likely scenarios. I wanted to say to her "Yeah, just put me in the slammer now, and let someone else drive my mom to her doctor's appointments, purchase her boxes of Depends and repeat over and over to her that she does NOT have a doctor's appointment tomorrow." I didn't say it, though.

When she returned after about 20 minutes of photocopying, she explained again how all the finances would work, including the fact that between now and September 1st, I have to spend down about $650.00 of mom's bank account. I can't imagine the look that crossed my face, but she said "I can see I just lost you there." Yes, I had to admit that since her bank account was now well below the $2500.00 she is allowed to keep, and since, after all, I had been under suspicion only moments before for the $208.00 I had spent on Euros, I was a bit perplexed that suddenly I was to go out on a spending spree with mom's money. In an explanation too lengthy to include here, I do in fact, understand why I need to spend money, but with the caveat that I can't put anything on my credit or debit cards and pay myself back, "because that would look bad."

So, after only 2 1/2 hours, I left HHS, and by now there was a good line of people waiting to be seen. All that is now left for me to do is A) spend a lot of money B) decide whether I want to keep control over mom's income and pay the bills going forward (Langdon Place gets all of her income minus the cost of BC/BS and the $56.00 per month she is allowed as "spending money)or have the money directly deposited to Langdon Place and C) Try to get Langdon Place to get mom into the Medicare Part D program so that all of her meds and over-the-counter (?) drugs will be paid for going forward.

So, after 5 years of shepherding the money and spending as little as possible, I now need to make sure that we never go over $2500 in her bank account, counting the $56.00 she is allowed to have in an account at Langdon Place. Since Depends alone cost $49.00 per month, I doubt we need to worry too much about this. Imagine my great delight to get home to find my own social security statement in the mail, telling me how much I'll get to have per month and realizing just how much potential there is for living out my last years in poverty as well. Just put me in jail now. . .