disabled adult child is very funny and provocative term. in spite of ADA americans still use such terms. for most of the people in society, disabled persons remain children and children are not allowed to marry. In India we do not have such fancy terms, but then we do not have social security schemes
On 8/30/22, avinash shahi <[email protected]> wrote: > When one partner is disabled and the other isn’t, getting married > could mean giving up lifesaving health care and benefits from the > government. > Lori Long and Mark Contreras of Salinas, Calif., have been engaged > since December 2016, but have been reluctant to marry out of fear Ms. > Long would lose her health benefits. > Lori Long and Mark Contreras of Salinas, Calif., have been engaged > since December 2016, but have been reluctant to marry out of fear Ms. > Long would lose her health benefits.Credit...Clara Mokri for The New > York Times > Lori Long and Mark Contreras met on Match.com in November 2015. For > Ms. Long, their first date a few weeks later, at Tarpy’s Roadhouse, a > restaurant in Monterey, Calif., was a high-stakes proposition. > > “Within our first few emails we were really clicking,” she said. > Telling him about the spinal disease that causes her to pitch forward > and walk with a cane before he had a chance to meet her, she thought, > might have been off-putting. But she didn’t want to seem like she was > hiding something. So, Ms. Long, 50, settled on a predate disclosure. > > Mr. Contreras, 51, wouldn’t have minded if she hadn’t told him > beforehand. Their email connection had felt special to him, too. When > he asked her to dinner, skipping over the customary casual coffee > date, it was because he was already attracted to her personality as > much as her picture. “I told her, ‘I think we’ll be fine,’” he said. > “And we were.” > Ms. Long would nearly break his heart two years later. Within weeks of > the Tarpy’s date, both knew they had found their forever partner. But > three months after Mr. Contreras proposed in his Salinas, Calif., home > in December 2016 and Ms. Long said an ecstatic “yes,” Ms. Long sat him > down for a talk. “I told him, ‘Mark, we’re not going to be able to > pursue a life together,’” she said. > > She still wanted to marry him, but not if it meant giving up the > health care benefits that she relies on to live. > > Ms. Long is caught in a governmental quagmire. She was diagnosed at 15 > with ankylosing spondylitis, a condition that causes bone fractures > and sometimes requires her to use a wheelchair. As a teenager, she > said, she watched her family experience financial difficulties > attempting to pay for her health care when she first got sick, even > though she had private insurance at the time. > > Because she qualifies for Social Security benefits through a program > for adults whose medical disability started before age 22, she is > considered a “disabled adult child.” The designation, known as D.A.C., > applies to 1.1 million Americans, according to the Social Security > Administration website. > > Those who qualify generally cannot continue to receive benefits if > they marry someone who is not disabled or retired. (For a brief window > after same-sex marriage became federal law in 2015, marrying a person > of the same gender was also a workaround to avoid losing benefits; it > took a while for the Social Security Administration to change the > wording of its policies from “husband and wife” to “spouse.”) > The marriage provisions, Ms. Long maintained, are lodged in outdated > ideas that have marginalized the disabled. “When they wrote the Social > Security laws, they weren’t thinking that young people with > disabilities would ever be marriage material,” she said. “People > didn’t think we might have dreams and hopes like everybody else. We > do.” > Ms. Long and Mr. Contreras, an accountant for Sun Street Centers, a > nonprofit organization in Salinas that provides education to prevent > alcohol and drug addiction, are still engaged. But a marriage > factoring in the loss of Ms. Long’s benefits is financially untenable > for them. Adding her to his health insurance would be prohibitively > expensive, plus it wouldn’t provide the same type of coverage as > Medicaid. > > Besides her $1,224 monthly D.A.C. stipend, Ms. Long’s only source of > income is a part-time sales job at a Sand City, Calif., Home Goods > store. There, she makes an hourly wage in the teens (the company has a > policy against disclosing wages). > > But Ms. Long and Mr. Contreras’s pull to be recognized legally as > spouses hasn’t waned. When Ms. Long told him about the marriage > penalty after finding out about it in March 2017, he responded in a > way she called “just about perfect.” > > “He said, ‘Lori, we’re going to figure this out,’” she said. “He said, > ‘I loved you yesterday, I love you today and I’ll love you tomorrow.’” > They have been at the figuring-out part ever since. > And they are not alone. Ms. Long is among a nationwide network of > people pushing for change in Social Security laws as they pertain to > marriage. They include not just D.A.C. recipients like her, but also a > larger group of disabled Americans — roughly four million — who get > S.S.I., or Supplemental Security Income. > > In September 2019, Ms. Long contacted Representative Jimmy Panetta, a > Democrat in California’s 20th Congressional district. Earlier this > year, he introduced the Marriage Equality for Disabled Adults Act, > which includes a provision nicknamed “Lori’s Law” that would remove > the D.A.C. marriage restriction. > > California State Senator Anna Caballero also introduced a state > resolution that passed in August, calling on the federal government to > end the D.A.C. marriage restriction. > > “The resolution would not change the federal law,” said Ayesha Elaine > Lewis, a staff attorney with the Disability Rights Education and > Defense Fund. “It’s just California saying, ‘Congress, we support > Lori’s Law and we want you to pass it.’” > > Change at both the state and federal level is “a real possibility,” > Ms. Lewis said, but “it will be a long and challenging journey.” > > Ms. Lewis added, “The complex bureaucracies that provide essential > services and supports for people with disabilities were created > piecemeal, and were based on outdated assumptions about marriage, > paternalism and a limited understanding of the full and vibrant lives > possible for people with disabilities.” > The number of couples who choose to stay single because of D.A.C. and > S.S.I. marriage penalties is difficult to tally. Ms. Lewis said all > beneficiaries are affected, whether they’re in a romantic relationship > or not. “They’re impacted because of the way these penalties affect > their choices regarding whether and with whom to pursue a romantic > relationship,” she said. > Gabriella Garbero of St. Louis, for one, feels robbed of her right to > marry every day. > > Ms. Garbero, 31, was born with spinal muscular atrophy type two, a > rare muscle-wasting disease. She has used a wheelchair since early > childhood. “Basically, when my brain tells my muscles to move, my > muscles can’t hear,” she said. Ms. Garbero gets a monthly Social > Security Disability Insurance check for $1,150. > > But it is not just the prospect of losing that money if she marries > her non-disabled fiancé, Juan Johnson, 28, that’s keeping her from > setting a wedding date. Ms. Garbero qualifies for S.S.I. as well as > S.S.D.I.; she needs the S.S.I. designation to maintain her health > care. “S.S.I. is the gateway for me to qualify for Medicaid,” she > said. “Medicaid is what keeps me alive.” > > Ms. Garbero is a 2021 graduate of St. Louis University Law School. She > plans to take the Missouri bar exam in 2023 and is writing a book > about systemic oppression based on disability. When she and Mr. > Johnson got engaged on Jan. 1, 2021, she ran some numbers. She > determined that if she were to forfeit Medicaid for marriage, the cost > of home health aides who care for her when Mr. Johnson, who works in > information technology, can’t be there to help her get around and take > care of basic needs, would cost $100,000 to $200,000 annually. > > While she would qualify for his health insurance as a spouse, Ms. > Garbero said, “it would be woefully inadequate in meeting my health > needs.” > “So unless one of us wins the lottery or starts making half a million > dollars a year, there won’t be a wedding,” she added. “Marriage is a > cultural club you’re not really allowed into if you’re disabled.” > > Pockets of hope have been surfacing. > > On Feb. 12, the interabled couple Kaitlin A. Kerr and Jonathan > Heidenreich were married in a self-uniting ceremony at a coffee shop, > the Coffee Tree Roasters, in Pittsburgh, where they live. Ms. Kerr, an > S.S.D.I. recipient who gets Medicaid and Medicare, found a way to keep > the benefits that help her cope with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a rare > disease that affects the connective tissue and forced her to leave her > job as a registered nurse in 2017. > > In January, the Pennsylvania Legislature enacted a bill passed in 2021 > that widens eligibility for a state program called Medical Assistance > for Workers with Disabilities. The changes allow Ms. Kerr, 35, who now > works 10 hours a week from home as a nurse educator, to keep Medicaid > as a married woman. Before the new law, qualifying for Medicaid > through the state program would have been impossible because of income > thresholds that placed her and Mr. Heidenreich above the poverty line. > > Mr. Heidenreich, 31, is a high school English teacher who left his job > during the pandemic to stay home with Ms. Kerr; he now works in > mortgage lending. He proposed after one year of dating in 2019. > > Mr. Heidenreich thinks of his wife and the others who helped convince > the state to change its program as heroes. “They made sacrifices and > advocated so fiercely and pushed themselves even with limited physical > capabilities,” he said. > > Ms. Kerr intends to keep pushing. “Trapping us in enforced poverty and > preventing us from forming families sends a message to people with > disabilities that we’re not worth the connections other people have,” > she said. “The next step is getting the federal laws changed. We’re > going to do this piece by piece, so nobody gets left behind.” > A version of this article appears in print on Aug. 28, 2022, Section > ST, Page 11 of the New York edition with the headline: For Some > Disabled People, Marrying Is Too Costly. > https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/25/style/marriage-equality-disabled-people.html?searchResultPosition=1 > > -- > सादर/ Regards > > अविनाश शाही/ Avinash Shahi > सहायक/ Assistant > मानव संसाधन प्रबंध विभाग/ Human Resource Management Department > भारतीय रिजर्व बैंक/ Reserve Bank of India > लखनऊ क्षेत्रीय कार्यालय/Lucknow RO > विस्तार/ Extension: 2232 > > -- > Disclaimer: > 1. Contents of the mails, factual, or otherwise, reflect the thinking of the > person sending the mail and AI in no way relates itself to its veracity; > > 2. 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