Saturday, March 06, 1999

Reforms may put disabled to work

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BY MARK CURNUTTE
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Linda Good of Hamilton, a quadriplegic since she was 17, is a real-estate agent who works out of her home. (Steven Herppich photo) | ZOOM |

        Linda Good has no use of her legs and limited use of her arms and hands, the result of an automobile accident when she was 17.

        After some 30 years of government dependence, the Hamilton woman decided to earn her real estate license. But after reporting her first $500 commission, she received a bill for $211 from the Butler County Department of Human Services.

        “They wanted me to pay for the personal assistant who helps me get out of bed and bathed in the morning,” Ms. Good said. “I'll pay my fair share, but it's pointless for me to try to work if this is how it's going to be.”

        Help could be on the way for Ms. Good and many of the 42 million Americans between 16 and 65 who have a disability. A Senate bill and proposed Social Security policy changes would remove health-coverage barriers and some other obstacles that keep as many as 72 percent of adults with disabilities unemployed.

        The U.S. unemployment rate is at 4.4 percent, making this a good time to help people with disabilities get jobs, say many policy makers and advocates for the disabled.

        “People with disabilities are an untapped labor pool,” said Mary Keegan, area manager of the Southwest Ohio Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation (BVR), a state agency. “They want to work, but it's not uncommon for them to say they can't afford to.”

        For years, many people with physical, sensory and mental

        disabilities have received rehabilitation and vocational training, reaching the point where they could work. Then many of them run into a wall. They have to choose between a job and their Medicaid and Medicare benefits. And the job often loses.

        Less than one-half of 1 percent of the nation's 8 million beneficiaries of Social Security Administration benefits voluntarily leave the rolls.

        “They make a rational decision not to work,” said U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine, R-Ohio, a co-sponsor of the Work Incentives Improvement Act of 1999.

Remove income caps
        Introduced by Sens. James Jeffords, R-Vt., and Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. in January, the bill primarily would eliminate income limitations for working people with disabilities who buy into Medicaid. It was examined Thursday by the Senate Finance Committee and could be voted on by the Senate within a few weeks.

        The estimated cost of the bill is $17 billion over five years, a figure Sen. DeWine disputes.

        “I'm sure it's not going to be that high,” he said. “You can't really get a dollar value on it because it assumes people will not be working and paying taxes.”

        The bill would ultimately fund programs like the one that helped Ms. Good stay in the work force. She is a self-employed real-estate agent and works out of her Hamilton home.

        Project ABLE (Analyzing Benefits Leading to Employment) is a program of the Legal Aid Society of Cincinnati that provides free legal services to people with disabilities. It breaks down confusing regulations and helps people understand how going to work will affect their other benefits, ranging from Social Security Income and Medicare/Medicaid to food stamps and housing subsidies. The program also helps people with disabilities implement the work incentive plan of their choosing.

        The Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation, which paid for Ms. Good's schooling, personal assistant and transportation, contracts with Legal Aid to provide services to its clients.

        A Legal Aid attorney convinced Butler County Human Services officials that Ms. Good's start-up business expenses — professional fees, computer programs, business cards, etc. — should allow her to maintain her disability benefits.

        But long-term dependence is not in Ms. Good's plans. She wants to contribute to society as a full participating citizen. She wants to work. She worked for five years in the Hamilton office of former state Rep. Mike Fox but wouldn't accept a salary for fear of losing her government medical coverage.

        “For so long, everything said, "Don't work, don't work,'” she said. “I look forward to paying taxes. My goal is to be as self-sufficient as I possibly can.”

Easing the transition
        Legal Aid's Project ABLE has also helped a Price Hill man who is deaf earn a bachelor's degree from Cincinnati Bible College, which in turn allowed him to become an ordained minister and full-time teacher at St. Rita School for the Deaf.

        When the Rev. Robert Ringle went to work, the Social Security Administration stopped his PASS payments (Plans for Achieving Self-Sufficiency).

        “That was part of my income that I needed to make the transition to employment,” said the Rev. Mr. Ringle, 36, a minister at the Christ Church for the Deaf at the Western Hills Church of Christ, Covedale.

        “Legal Aid took care of the misunderstandings,” he said. “I could keep moving forward.”

        The Rev. Mr. Ringle wears hearing aids in both ears and reads lips, but because he didn't lose his hearing until he was 9, he can still speak. He appreciates the government assistance he has received and wants to give back, both as a taxpayer and in service to other people.

        “I've been getting all this stuff (benefits), which has helped me get where I am today,” he said at the Deaf and Hard of Hearing Institute of Christian Education in Price Hill, where he also works part time. “People tell me I do too much, that I work too much.

        “I used to be one of those people (with a disability) who said, "Give it all to me,' and there are people like that out there. I used to think there were two worlds, the deaf world and the other world. Now I know there is one world. I want to be in that one world.”

Legal Aid can help
        Trey Daly is the Legal Aid attorney who oversees Project ABLE.

        “The whole idea is to help people with disabilities see that, yes, they can work, and they're better off working,” he said. “Most people with disabilities don't have access to attorneys, and they have gotten bad advice from Social Security, or the cooperation that's supposed to happen between Social Security and Medicaid isn't happening.”

        People with disabilities also could receive a boost if a Clinton Administration proposal is approved by Social Security Administration Commissioner Kenneth Apfel.

        The president wants to increase the amount of money a person can earn each month, from $500 to $700, without losing critical cash and medical benefits from Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income checks.

        “This will help a person who is trying to work,” said Susan M. Daniels, Deputy Commissioner for Disability and Income Security with the Social Security Administration in Baltimore, Md. “It has been nine years since it was raised, and it has penalized people for even the smallest effort.”

       

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