Rationed Health Care Will Kill Me

Dear Reader, let us just wade right in here. Recently you may have heard a term new to most: rationed health care (RHC). What is it? It is the medical community's response to running out of doctors, equipment, or even human organs. It is fascism and bigotry that most USians can either ignore or give their tacit approval. I know that the title above may seem to be overly ripe click bait, but the truth is more murky than your local lab coat may be willing to admit.

Nissi, a black pittie, looking sadly at the camera. 

Here in the early spring of 2020, the spread of a novel corona virus is infecting people with Covid19. While less ambitious than the Black Plague, it is currently associated with a 2-5% fatality rate, with that rate increasing dramatically for those that have managed to kick around on this dirtball longer than most, those making the best of life with other conditions like diabetes, cancer, or other chronic conditions. The best data on US standards prior to Covid19 can be found in the Uniform Anatomical Gift Act, a non binding document adopted state by state (sometimes with changes.)

The argument goes that first come first serve is UNFAIR in a medical crisis. I watched a nurse, in real time, talk as though saying that some jaggoff with young kids is more deserving of medical supplies and effort than a grandma with a poor pancreas. His youth and status as someone that could mash their meat against someone else's meat enough to make yet more meat makes him more worthy of LIFE ITSELF. Is that how you want your Granny to leave this Earth?  Do you think that would be fair to her and her family?

This problem is not a surprise. We knew we had too few ventilators, too few beds, too few caregivers. The Obama Administration knew, and told this clown car known as the Trump Administration. The WHO knew, Bill Gates knew, all credible sources that looked at the problem knew. They knew that we would need to ration care during a health emergency like this one and our powers that be DO NOTHING. DID NOTHING. And as soon as the public looks away, they will go right back to it unless something changes. 

At the center of this disaster is negligence at both the corporate and governmental level. Profit making hospitals have to ration their money into the features of a hospital that can generate profit. That profit comes from you, the patient, the taxpayer and goes to the very top of their corporate chain. It does not go to new buildings to provide more health care to the less privileged making them also under-served. It does not go to buying equipment that may only get used in an emergency. And the US government allowed it.

I am not knocking an individual person here. Nor do I have a chance in this fight - if infected, I am likely to die at home long before I would give consent to be taken to a hospital in this pandemic. My crippled immune system would make me more likely to get sick from the germs in an ER, and the stress would cause a flare that would go unattended by most staff even in the best of times. Even if I were to go to an ER for something else, Covid19, germs, worn out & stressed staff not able to pay attention to special needs cases, and my body's stress response means I would die of one or the other. So I have made the decision to stay home, to die at home if it comes to that: surrounded by those that can care for me, that care about me, in however much peace and comfort we can muster. 

Individuals run from the responsibility of their own decisions by hiding as a cog in a machine, just a representative for a corporation they barely understand, let along control. Modern doctors do not stand up for the poor like they should. As of yesterday, apparently this country realized that black and brown folk are 70% of Covid19 deaths. This is the result of a chain of inequity of which the hospitals were the last link of the chain. THIS IS ALSO THE RESULT OF RATIONED CARE. You can disagree with my earlier statement about bigotry in RHC, but the truth is in thousands of dead black and brown bodies.

There is no fairness in a plague. There is no fairness in a hospital where infection floats from room to room on garb that has not been changed or  sterilized. There is no fairness in death. None. First come first served has the benefit of being something that we do see as fair in other circumstances. It also has the benefit of rewarding those that took action early. We can do better. We can make sure that we need to ration less the next time, and the time after that. 

You are welcome to do your own research, (find out how much your own life is worth, you may be surprised.) I did before I ranted above. Much love to health care workers in general and ALL those workers that make sure we can live though this: from green grocers to ER nurses to delivery drivers to electricians. You are seen, needed, and awesome. 

Neglected Blog Gets Quarantine Post

Hallo, there. It sure has been a minute. So, yeah, obvious title is obvious. Actually, here there has been little change between pre-shelter/safety/health/Covid isolation/quarantine/just in case lock down and during it for me and mine. We shop a little further out, order everything we can and try to be mindful. 

On a happy note, congratulations to me for surviving a formal quarantine order. No fancy gown or certificate, so I admit I feel a little cheated. I had to go to my doctor's office for my quarterly Criminal Yet? pain patient visit and sometime during the day a patient that tested positive for Covid-19 was in the same building. (Not that they had any tests for us, the hoi polloi. Their rep said they had none at all but vapor locked when I asked how they could know a C19 patient was there with such a certainty as to change our lives so dramatically.) As of April 2nd I am free & clear to only be as worried miserable as everybody else!

That is right. In my county there were no tests available for a aging, disabled, immunocompromised woman even when suspected of being exposed to something as deadly as this coronavirus.

I have debated the future of this blog so many times I can hardly count them all. There are many more disability blogs out there than ever before and they are written by smarter, sharper, and more insightful people saying most of the things I think about saying here.

I do need to get some shit off of my chest, from Buddhism to the Bore in Chief and I suspect if I keep filling the ears of my Guys, they may go mad - and it just is not fair to corner them during a pandemic faux quarantine.  Windows is nagging me about yet another update, so I will see you in the next entry - or the previous ones if you so desire. Look around, get a feel of the place.

Thanks for stopping by!

Handbook for the Recently Disabled, Part I

Finding yourself recently disabled? Gimpy? Crippled? Love someone recently removed from the ranks of the TAB (temporarily able bodied)? Well, you have come to the right place, Dear Reader. Here are some practical bits of lived in situations for yours truly!

The Handbook for the Recently Disabled will show up sometimes, with a handful of bite-sized pieces of advice I wish I knew or have observed along the way. YMMV (your milage may vary), of course. I am not a medical professional in any way.

First, enjoy this picture of Lucky, a tiny, tawny chi-wowow.

First off, no one is actually allowed to call you a cripple and be seen as a reasonable adult in the US. You can call yourself whatever you want. I frequently use words like that to refer to myself because language is a tool I wield wildly.

Remember to get your disability parking! Indiana gives out both plates and tags, but you need documentation from your doctor that you need it. It comes in two flavors: 6 months and No Expy. So check with your BMV or doc to find out what you need to do if you qualify. I needed proof from my doc, so folks that think you can fake it need to know the following: faking is more complicated than parking - why bother? Not like you will get to use a special spot anyway, read on!

Third, remember when you go out of the house this hard learned lesson: there is never enough handicapped parking. The days you need it the most, those paltry places are never sufficient. No, it is not worth it to get into a conflict with a person that appears to be parked illegally - if they gave a damn they would not have parked there in the first place. You have no authority, most shops and stores will not make someone move, and you are already having a hard time getting around - do not waste your efforts on assholes.

Everything has changed. Maybe you just need a cane, maybe you can only move your eyelashes, I have no way of knowing, Dear Reader. The newly disabled, me and some of mine included, found ourselves reevaluating every movement of every day. Spoon theory sums this up incredibly well. Figure out what you must do, what you need to do, what you desire to do and prioritize as you see fit. 

Lastly for this piece: know your help. For me, help came mostly from family and a few close friends. Be honest with yourself about who you can really lean on and trust with your health, your emotional well being, and your business. Depending on your life and people, you may place a lot on a few or try to spread it out depending on the strengths of your folks or your trust. Some folks will let you down, be prepared. But be ready to be amazed, surprised, humbled, and deeply gratified, too. Folks will surprise you: users will disappear in puffs of jerk-shaped smoke, and some will leave you wondering how on earth you earned that kind of dedication and love.

ObamaPhone or Indiana Lifeline Assistance

So I received my "ObamaPhone" application in the mail recently. I know there is so much to talk about right now, but since I have this in front of me and there is a ton of false information and ignorance about this particular subject I think this is necessary. Also: I want to contribute to the works that actually help people on occasion - this blog is not just for me sounding off about things that are wrong.

Picture of the flyer that came with my application. I wanted to show you the application, but I could not come up with a way to show you, Gentle Reader, what I wanted to show you without displaying personal information. 

They are cracking down on fraud and abuse on both corporate and individual levels. Do not falsify anything on your application.

Let me say right now that there is nothing wrong with needing a lifeline phone. They will only ask you about how you qualify, not about how or why you believe you need their phone. Even if your situation is okay but perhaps subject to cataclysmic change it is something you should consider. Maybe your need is obvious and undeniable. Maybe everything is fine today, but the finances are out of your hands. Maybe it will only take one big couple fight to find you in desperate need of a phone. Maybe you are at home taking care of a parent that uses access to cars, phones and whatnot to control you and your business. Only people that could really need one are even eligible, so do not let internalized classism keep you from help you need no matter why you need it. 

My application came to me though my health coverage. I am disabled so I have the state's health program. You can see if you are eligible for Indiana's Lifeline Assistance program here at Safelink. As with all things "free" it comes with ad offers and such, but you can opt out of most of them. But I am getting ahead of myself. 

You can apply straight up at the website above if you do not receive a pre-approved application in the mail. (Note: that approval only lasts a few days, so use your application right away if you receive one.) You can also apply at your local library. If you are having extreme trouble, you can apply over the phone, but they do save that for folks having trouble with the process.

The application I received is in English on one side, Spanish on the other, and I think they have other language options at the web site. All I had to fill out was my name, address, last four Social Security number digits, and a contact phone number if you have one. There is also a box to check if your address is temporary. 

Next you pick your plan. The choices are 68 minutes a month, 125 minutes a month, and 250 minutes a month. Each plan comes with different options. The most important one is that the 68 and 125 plans have roll over/carry over minutes, whereas the 250 plan does not. The first couple of months have bonus minutes, and my offer included free calls to my docs even if my time is used up. Speaking of, you can of course buy SafeLink cards to extend your time if you have used it up for the month.

Once you get though that, you have to swear under penalty of perjury that you belong to the plan they believe qualifies you and a handful of other statements like that a qualifying household can only participate in the plan once. If you have trouble reading small print I definitely recommend using the website so you can use your browser options to size the text to your comfort level and ability.

That is it. You can fill out the paper application, go online, call their question line, fax it. As my own application progresses I will update this article. I am happy to say that the process seems to be fairly easy so far. 

Updates will go here. Corrections to the above, if needed, will be added where appropriate and clearly indicated.

• This process immediately showed itself to be a government program, in that it is difficult to navigate in ways that only the government can produce (and I mean in general, no offense to the current administration).
• I filled out the paper application so I could walk through it in this article, but my plan was to go online to file. However, the first thing Safelink wants is your "enrollment ID." Guess what? There is no such thing labeled on the application. There is a member ID, and promo code, and a bar code, but no such number labeled.
• My call to the help number at the bottom of the paperwork was promptly answered, filling me with false hope. The support personnel on the other end of the line was difficult to hear, and stuck to a script which did not answer my question at all. At one point there was an indication that it might be my insurance number (my qualifying program), but that is also used as my "member ID" and was not usable as my "enrollment ID." So that was a 14 minute exercise in futility.
• I could not start a fresh application because their web form would not accept my hyphenated last name. Later even the tech support agent helping me had trouble and even asked me if I had changed it on my government paperwork. (Yes, I did, sexist coder that wrote this form, I did.)
• Next is my call to the help line listed on their web page. They have separate numbers for account help and tech support. The line is automated at first and is designed to help without connecting you to a real person. I needed a live person. It took two minutes to get connected to live help, which is not bad in my experience.
• Again, the script given to assist customers was almost the opposite of help. It took another thirty two minutes to suss out that the only way to get past the lack of "enrollment ID" and the last name business was to apply over the phone. Now, the person I actually dealt with was heroic in trying to stick to the script. She also actually wanted to and eventually did help.
• At one point I had to give the "I have worked in tech and tech support, I would not be bugging you if anything I could try worked!" speil. 
• It was assumed I wanted the 250 minute plan, the others were not mentioned.
• Applying over the phone is tedious, repetitive and irritating. If you can use any other method, I recommend quite strongly that you do so.
• So now the wait is on! 7 to 10 business days should produce an Indiana Lifeline Assistance handset...

Ally Maintenance and Upkeep

There is a really provocative graphic going around about allies lately.  (I am not sure of a source to link, but it was a solid series of tweets about being a QUILTBAG ally. If you have the source, please let me know so I can credit and link, thanks!) It got me thinking about allies and ally-ship. Let me share my brain drippings with you!

I think that allies are part of the community like suburbs are part of the city. They are in the same vague area (say, disability rights) but their experiences are markedly different (by, you know, not actually being disabled) and usually less intense. They both take shit for thinking that disabled folks are full and complete people rather than drains on the system that should have been set on ice flows. One is having their own humanity questioned; while the other is just being told they are wrong, even if it is about something they deeply believe.

I do think that allies of any community should have a safe space... to themselves. They should not intrude on a core community, and most certainly not feel entitled to the core safe spaces, or the time and energy of members of the core community. They should not place themselves above or superior to their core group. But they do have needs that they can support each other to handle. Those needs are not the same as the core folks anyway. Someone being called a racial slur is experiencing something much different than I experience when called a race traitor. We may both need a hand and support, but of vastly different types. Which means that intruding on an oppressed group's safe space is not only a jerk-ass move, but would not give an actual ally what they may need, anyhow.

For anyone reading this with a raised eyebrow or proto-side-eye, I understand. Who the fuck am I, anyway?This is only based on my personal observations as a racial justice ally, an immigration/DREAM ally, an ally to the other folks in LGbt, for starters. Also, I see it a member of the QUILTBAG community, the disability community, a woman, a person of low fixed income et al... I have intersections, and I bet you do too! 

Sometimes it needs to be said that being oppressed and/or being an ally of an oppressed group does not make one exempt from being an asshole. Let me emphasize that real quick: statuses of privilege or lack of it are not indications of being a good person or a bad person. Which is why I mention sincerity. Have it, get it, or get the fuck out of the way. I have been called out when I was wrong and accepted it with what grace I could muster. I have also had someone use oppressed status to power insults and social maneuvers, which I took... with less grace. If you are a minority dealing with an asshole, my advice is to walk away and make your group aware so the asshole blowback is minimized (ewww!). If you are an ally dealing with an asshole that also happens to be oppressed, go somewhere else. Do your research instead and do not assume that the whole group is made of assholes. 

In oppressed communities we bristle at the idea of allies needing support from us. It is not our responsibility, true. I think that they can, and should, support each other. It should be acknowledged that allies can and do have needs and sometimes require social support to avoid burnout and continue the work, share resources, commiserate. Frequently allies do look to the core community for where to go and what to do, which is sometimes simple attention seeking behavior, but it can be a sincere request, too. If someone seems sincere when asking, say, how to get ally fellowship from my militantly bisexual self, I point them at PFLAG or something similar, or in other instances give them good terms to use to Google to get them started if I have the energy to do so for them.

So let us approach each other with mutual respect and care.  I am not claiming a special insight here - most folks have an oppression and in some other way benefit from the oppression of others (even if we would rather not). We each have to decide what to do here ourselves, and respect that right even if we disagree. I will not sacrifice my own peace of mind or self care to lead someone that is ostensibly supporting me, nor should I or anyone else be expected to do so. If I can, I will. Allies are people, people trying to do right even though they could go through life not giving a damn. If I suspect sincerity, I will always at least point them in the right direction. There is not a group I belong to that could not use another good ally. 

Have something to add? Read my comment policy and then start typing if you can respect it and me.

This Knapsack Here

The other day I was trying to be supportive in a chat room discussion about the issues that many black and brown women regarding feminism in general, particularly first and second wave feminism. It was a great talk and it seemed to me that folks were able to express discontent freely and talk about how intersectional feminism was still not enough of a force to reach them, let alone include them.

I really wanted to talk about how the disabled were right there too, in line for forced sterilization in the beginning. And later. And still now.

I wanted to talk about how bisexual and lesbian and trans and queer women have struggled for recognition in the women's rights moment, too. How we were institutionalize and lobotomized in this country (US). 

I wanted to reach across the room and connect on how poor women are still struggling to get recognized in an era where they are still ignored and pathologized. Where the poor get lost in the shuffle.

It is hard to say that you are supporting someone's right to express themselves without interrupting them. So I stayed quiet, offered reference points as to which wave of feminism could be fairly characterized as doing what (human footnote machine!), and otherwise reading and learning and feeling what other people were writing. They hit a lot of the problems I have with the feminist label, too. Maybe I did the right thing, maybe not - and there is not always someone that will tell you. I did not have one this time, and I do not expect anyone to take on that job, but I appreciate it when someone does.

For all my sympathy, for all my intersectional connections to issues inside of the movement, I have a distinction: I am white. I am a whiter shade of pale. I am Whitey McWhiteson. That whiteness shields me, even with the shield seems pretty pathetic. As a white disabled woman, I am at an advantage over an Asian American disabled woman. As a white bisexual, I am at an advantage over a Hispanic (Latina) American bisexual woman. That is my knapsack, even if it is sometimes pretty useless feeling, it is always in effect.

I would not fault the folks that would never have that conversation in front of a white woman proclaiming feminist tendencies. There are some disability issues that I do not share with the TAB unless they are family and need to know. There are some bi experiences that are pretty exclusively understood by other bi folks. Poverty is a very specific way to try to live, and those that have never struggled with money seen to have a very hard time even understanding the basics, given the rare occasion that they seem to try to understand at all.

I did not feel left out of the conversation. I felt honored to be there. With all of feminism's problems, I was honored to see it, glad to offer what little I could and otherwise bear witness with no let or hindrance. 

(The links are kind of disjointed, and I am unhappy with them and just stopped using most of them. I am just going to leave my thoughts here and let them stand as they are.)

Gun Culture and Privilege

(This is kind of rambling. I apologize. I am swimming through a mess of fog and phlegm with suspected strep throat. Read or disregard at your leisure.)

Wow, gun culture is some taking some swats lately. Some deserved, some not. I do want to say that I do not know a single gun owner that is an NRA member or has two nice words to say about that organization. I know they are out there, let me tell you about my last gun show. I do not really feel bugged by these swats, because I know I am not their target. I only worry that others will think that it is me.

I carry because I am a crippled lady that simply is not able to physically defend against even the average foe. I carried when able bodied because I was a woman driving on highways and country roads at night alone. I have carried because my personal defense is my personal responsibility. My self defense is my own civic responsibility.

And you know what? At the range, practicing to end a life if necessary, I can honestly tell you that 100% of the time I am imagining a white person at the other end of my barrel. Usually a man, but there have been a couple of women in my life that have altered that for brief periods of time.

I mentioned because it keeps sticking in my head. One of the reasons that people fight the idea of privilege is that if you are a woman, or poor, or disabled, or LGBTQIA - it is hard to feel it like the people telling you about privilege want you to feel it. They will point up the hierarchy and say that's who you want to talk to if you want privilege.

This is because there is a funny thing about whiteness: it seems that it must have something to destroy. The days of open colonialism are rapidly closing in favor of "nation building" and "fighting them over there." But our dirty little secret is that in the absence of non-white folk to destroy, in any single or combination of physically, economically, spiritually, mentally; we destroy ourselves. There is no greater cannibal in history than whiteness.

Without a state of non-whiteness to unite against, whiteness turns in and eats itself: the disabled, the non-straight, the poor, the non-Christian, the non-Western, even the non-male get consumed and suppressed. And so, it becomes difficult to explain to a poor, USian, disabled, Wiccan, trans* lesbian that she has white privilege. Because Whiteness, as an entity, only includes her among it's ranks against some Other.

She does have privilege, and it does matter; all of her other states matter too.

I think we need a new vocabulary, one that that can talk about privilege without stigma. One that can acknowledge oppression without pity. A new language, or a new attitude about language needs to be born. Soon. I thought #Occupy would birth it, but it seems not. But maybe something will come after #Occupy, or inspired by - I do not know. But I think it will play it's part. I think we are still building those bridges, and it feels like we are approaching some sort of apex.

Poverty and Rand

The following contains my ramblings on some posts elsewhere about Ayn Rand, her views on poverty, and particularly how her ideological followers (whether they call themselves Objectivists, Randians or not) view and treat poverty. I have edited these slightly to make them make sense on their own, and for some grammar errors, or for clarification. Additions will be marked {thus}.

If you want to see a simulation of how an Objectivist society would go down, play Bioshock.

Enjoy!

~~~

When I first read (Ayn) Rand as a teenager, I loved her "perusing your own skills/ideals/whatnot to your own perfection" world view, but even then had trouble with her economics. As an adult, I do think there are things in her writing worth considering. My enormous trouble with her comes not from the fact that she has a economic ideology that I vehemently disagree with, but from what she does with it and how she expresses it. She had a fanatical hatred for the poor, calling them parasites and insisting that the world would be better off if they were removed from it (not lifted out of poverty by opportunity). That is more than a simply economic philosophy. She had a pathology about it. The irony is that when in dire straits herself she made use of the same safety net that she pontificated so loudly against.

And do not get me started on her Objectivist followers, they are such a hot mess it would take days to spell out everything wrong with their stances.

~~~

{On hating someone for being poor and apparently slothful.} Okay, but does that make any sense, either? Hating someone for something like that? And the very idea "people who were happy to remain poor" is bizarre, it makes no sense and has no reality in it whatsoever. But she did seem to think that such existed, and were a blight.

You are fine - I did not see it as semantics. And this is why it is important to really analyse literature, particularly when the author is openly promoting a particular world view. The saddest thing about Rand (besides the hypocrisy of her later life) is that it is really difficult to have a conversation like this where we talk about the ideas and do not degrade each other.

~~~

You cannot expect people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps when they have no boots.

In one hundred percent of my lived experience and anecdotal experiences I have been able to pursue, there is always a reason for not being able to take advantage of an opportunity. No one, I assert, no one is "happy" being poor. Some are making the best of their circumstances, and good for them if they can. Usually, people making that claim have no idea of the chasm between being on state sponsored assistance and becoming self-sufficient. Often, the job openings available cannot help bridge that chasm. But now we are getting past common perceptions of poverty and getting into the reality of it, and I do know know if this is a venue where that is desired, or if it is a part of the conversation worth getting into right now.

~~~

Eh, given that most state's assistance is not enough to live on, let long live a life of leisure, I have a hard time believing that. Are their some cases of welfare fraud? Sure. But the myth of the Welfare Queen, living a life of luxury courtesy of the state is just that: a malicious, ridiculous, and downright stupid myth. But the Randians eat it up and have made it a central pole in their tent of misguided self righteousness.

~~~

Ah, I see now. Thanks for the discussion, but you have some dead give a ways in your last two posts that lead me to believe we are not going to actually get anywhere with further discussion.

Because we could get into the weeds and prove that if you have children to care for, or conditions that require constant medical coverage, or any number of situations that make the gap between getting your first couple of paychecks and when the state cuts you off simply too wide for too many people - but you illustrate above that such would not really mean much to you. {I have done the math before, for multiple states - usually the new aid for an additional child will not even cover diapers, let alone be "extra money" in any way.}

I have lived, and am currently, living these situations. I am finding this a unique phenomena, the linking of morality to financial success or lack of it. It is bizarre. Not to knock you, specifically, I mean that it is a weird cultural thing. 

~~~

{The conversation mostly devolved at that point. Reading the above, the poster took what I said and turned it into a tirade against them. It was a beautiful illustration of both missing the point, and turning logic into a personal attack. The poster also was apparently unaware that I am disabled, that that, yes indeed, they were talking about me. But this issue was bigger than that.}

Hmm, in my two paragraphs I do not see any twisting or manipulating - or even any of the extrapolation that would allow such. Hell, I did not even say that you were one of the people comfortable punishing poor people, only that perhaps you could educate me on their mindset. You do protest too much, I think.

And it is about me. It is about you. It is about everyone. It is about the poor. It is about the people that have been poor. It is about the people that will be poor. It is about everyone. And so, yeah, I am pretty damn uncomfortable with blanket moral judgments towards "the poor" as a group. Especially "slothful" - because that has to come from someone that has never been poor, because being poor is damn hard work. I do find it a convenient landmark, though, because the people that throw the word around obviously are completely disconnected from the work of just being poor. The running around, the appointments, the paperwork, the requirements just to receive any kind of aid - they do make you work for it. Hell, Disability alone takes an average of two to three years to resolve a case.

Most USian households are one paycheck, one health calamity, one car accident, from suddenly being poor. Do they deserve your moral indignation? No, they do not. But it is far too common to find your own "Welfare Queen or King" and decide that this morally bankrupt person is the face of the poor. Never mind that most aid is given to white house holds that simply had that one paycheck calamity. Or were downsized. Or became disabled. The true face of poverty in the US is us, you and me, not your "morally bankrupt" scapegoats. Much like in war, the dehumanization of the poor allows us to treat them as this other deserving of what ever they get. lucky for the scraps thrown their way.

There is a preponderance of evidence supporting the fact that we are the face of poverty. Or more appropriately, that you cannot generalize the way you would like to. If I thought I could change your mind, LMGTFY {Let Me Google That For You}, but you can easily do so if you want. You could have done so before this discussion, or during it.

Side note: I do not know about all states, but in mine if you are working on a 4 year degree you are disqualified from receiving help maintaining your household from the state. I know that for a been there, done that fact. Because your full class load keeps you from looking for full time work - so you are not eligible for aid. How is that for irony? Again, the result of policy makers having no contact with reality.