Egad Dis, you struck a nerve. That was my downfall. I worked. I started working when I was fifteen, digging ditches for a real estate developer. I worked my way through high school. ThenI worked my way through college, along with a scholarship and my parent's money that they couldn't afford. Then I worked my way through raising our children by doing my main job and free-lancing at tech writing and/or tech illustrating on the side, along with farm labor, and carpentry, and more brute manual labor. Whatever I could get to help pay the bills. I generally spent about 70-80 hours a week for most of my adult life on some kind of job.
Then I started feeling bad. I went to my doctor and he told me I was depressed and stressed out. He advised me to cut back on hours and eat better. Then he handed me me a big bill and sent me on my way. The next morning ( I shit you not, it was literally the very next morning) I walked into work and dropped in my tracks with a massive coronary. My ticker quit pumping twice in the ambulance on the way to the ER.
My employer supposedly had disability insurance. But my cardiologist refused to call me disabled. Didn't want to make himself look bad I guess by bad mouthing his own handiwork, and hated to mention the other things wrong with me since it wasn't his specialty. Turns out I have a few other things wrong with me too. A long list of them. But according to the employer's insurance, they weren't about to pay anything since I didn't have a physician willing to go out on a limb and swear I was too sick to work.
Social Security wasn't about to give benefits to a 40 year old man. Not gonna happen.
For three years I had no income of any kind. Not state benefits. Not workman's comp. Not local. Not federal. Nothing but help from family and local charities.
Finally got it in front of a federal judge. Two days later he issued a summary judgment in my favor. Didn't even bother to hold a hearing. Said the evidence was "obviously sufficient" to render a judgment and ripped the Soc. Sec. admin a new asshole for "sharp shooting the evidence" in order to "pick and choose" what the wanted it to show.
So I ended up getting a check for three years back pay. But without any benefits I spent most of those three years (metaphorically speaking) on my knees begging various doctors and clinics for the altace, nitro-glycerin, lipitor, toprol, etc. that I needed to stay alive. The obvious strategy was to hope that I died before the judge had time to make a ruling
This is the way it really works. Benefits are not so easy to obtain as a lot of people think they are.
"When the legends die, the dreams end. When the dreams end, there is no more greatness."
--Tecumseh
"It is better to be a live jackal than a dead lion."
--King Solomon the Wise
"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Unless the few are armed.