Benefits?

[Jorgehito]

Hi gang; I'm at stage 4 ckd and my doc and benefits guy at the Cali Community College said I should retire.  It seems like a good deal cause I can keep my  C College Kaiser coverage which is a pretty good deal too.  I'll retire under STRS with 50% pay for life.  I also retired in '97 from the Navy reserves, that kicks in at 60; I'm now 54.  Question:  since I paid into Social Security in the navy, (not while I was a prof).  Do I get SS disability benefits?  Are there any other goodies I should know about (tax implications on IRA, pensions, does the SS offset still apply?)?  Where do I start; hopefully with you guys!

[Rerun]

Once you quit work or retire you can go to SS and apply for disability.  You will soon know if you qualify for SS.  You will need letters from your docs etc.  I'm not sure you can retire on a disability from renal failure until you start dialysis?

[texasstyle]

Our experience was that my husband had to retire in his mid 50's due to his illness. His sister urged him to apply for SS benefits. Do note that he was just put on dialysis at the time. The lady at SS here in PA told us that he would automatically get medicaid coverage and no one on dialysis was ever turned down for that even though he was in his 50"s. The SS income benefits were also approved right away (within a couple months) to our suprise. We were expecting to have to appeal as we'd heard many have to for the income benefits. Now if you are not on dialysis yet I'm thinking things might be a bit different. We simply went to the social security office, sat down w/ someone and explained the situation. They more or less took it from there and guided us in the right direction. I hope things work out for the best.

[silverhead]

Like Texasstyle, I was pleasantly surprised when we applied for Sharon's SS disability, having heard all the horror stories about an almost automatic rejection when first applying for benefits, we filled out the paperwork and sent it in, very shortly had word that it was a done deal, no hassles at all.......

That was 4 years ago, this month we received a letter from SS, it said that she had just turned 66 and now was NO LONGER disabled, and was officially retired now, no change in the benefit amount, just the legal descriptor of her situation,,,,,
Tom