Absolutely clueless?

Hi. I’m here looking for help to navigate what I should do. (If that’s allowed)

I am disabled for life and was diagnosed at 1 1/2 with Rheumatoid Arthritis. I have had state medical coverage my whole life, and have just lost my coverage. I was told by health source RI (I’m in Rhode Island) that I’ve made too much money and I guess that’s why I was cut. I’ve never navigated the healthcare system before. Being disabled and always being covered, I thought as a disabled person that it would always be like this? My ignorance is no longer bliss.

I’m trying to figure out how I should proceed, this is what I understand my options are:

-Get health insurance through my job, but it is expensive and I don’t really understand what it would cover and how much I would have to pay (yes I’ve gone online and read the paper work and I just don’t understand it.)

-Make less money and hopefully get back onto state health insurance? Is that even possible?

-A healthcare worker told me to call DHS to see if I can talk about disability benefits? But I was always under the impression that if you collect disability, you’re forced into poverty because you also cannot make more than a certain amount of money.

I know I sound stupid, and I’m sorry to everyone reading this and myself. But I really need to figure this out, without medical coverage I can’t see my rheumatologist, or my eye doctor (don’t ask me how my RA affected my eyes but it did and I had to get a cataract surgery in my left eye). At the very least I need to see my RA doctor and my eye doctor to keep myself from becoming completely dependent on other human beings to live.

If I have to live in poverty for the rest of my life I guess that’s OKAY if I can continue to be healthy (as healthy as I can be anyway) I don’t know. I’m just scared and confused. Please don’t judge me. I know this is my fault, I know that I should have done better with tracking my health insurance. Having a chronic illness and poor mental health is a wombo combo for disaster.

submitted by /u/Hayley320
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