Long Covid Financial Duress

Wednesday, March 9th, 2022

It’s been 2 years since COVID took over our lives. If you were lucky, you didn’t get COVID, or at least you recovered from it fairly quickly without any lingering effects. But millions of people in this country have long COVID, a condition which can cause any number of lingering symptoms.

COVID does not discriminate against age, race, economic or political status, or gender. COVID affects previously healthy individuals as well as people with underlying health conditions. Some people with severe symptoms can barely get out of bed each day, let alone work a full-time job.

The financial duress caused by long COVID is unimaginable. So many of these people were unable to return to their job, and cannot work at all. Their only option, if they are fortunate enough to be eligible, is to apply for Social Security Disability benefits, Long Term Disability Insurance benefits through their job, or through a private disability policy. Yet , despite all the medical data available from reliable sources, people afflicted with long COVID are being denied disability benefits, even with their doctors’ support.

Hard working people just like you and me are being denied benefits. Shouldn’t they be compensated when they are struck down by an illness that renders them unable to work? The insurance companies and the Social Security Administration need to wake up, and help these people instead of denying them. Who knows, maybe in a few years they will recover so they can return to work. But right now, as much as they want to and need to, they cannot.

Instead of receiving the benefits to help them through their medical condition, people with Long COVID are losing their health insurance, their homes, and their dignity. These people need financial assistance now. The insurance companies and the SSA need to follow the science, and follow what the medical experts are saying. They cannot continue to bury their heads in the sand.

By Susan Golden

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