Americans with Disabilities Will Stop Paying Medical Bills If Debt Ceiling Halts SSDI Benefits


If the debt ceiling debate ends in a stalemate the medical industry can expect to see some drastic drops in revenues as Americans with disabilities in a recent Allsup poll said the first thing they are likely to cut will be medical expenses.

The poll found that 84 percent of respondents on social security rely on the benefits it provides for at least one-half of their monthly income, while 4 in 10 say Social Security is their sole source of monthly income.

Out of those numbers more than 10 million people with disabilities rely on SSDI benefits and they would be immediately effected if benefits were to become suspended by the U.S. Treasury Department as debt ceiling talks continue to be delayed by lawmakers.

Speaking to Yahoo News Allsup senior disability life planning specialist Tricia Blazier noted:

“This is a very real issue for millions of people, and it gets down to whether they can put food on the table or take the prescription medications they need for their health conditions.”

Single people on SSDI fare even worse than married couples with 67 percent of people on SSDI with dependents having no other income other than their own and 61 percent without dependents also solely relying on social security payments.

While 8.2 million people with disabilities would be directly affected, another 2 million people with disabled dependents would also struggle to pay their bills.

SSDI benefits were put in place to help people with severe disabilities who can not work for more than 12 months or longer, on average SSDI benefits pay out $1,069.50 per month (based on June 2011 numbers).

After refusing to cover medical payments (53 percent of respondents would stop paying) another 50 percent would forego prescriptions while 48 percent would hold off on paying their credit card bills.

Of course not everyone can afford to skip certain medications and for those people the issue of SSDI benefits being suspended could be the difference between life and death.

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