Medical Card Confusion

Student Q

Hey guys I am really confused by the rule regarding medical card.
I have had a medical card for a number of years now. It has come up for renewal. I am living with my partner who is working full time and earn approx €370 pw after tax. I understand there is consideration given to rent costs and travelling to work cost but our circumstances are a bit different I guess than the average application so we are unsure whether to claim for public transport cost or travelling to work cost. She starts work at 6am every day monday to friday and I drive her to work every morning. She comes home form work via public transport. I have to do a 12 mile round trip every morning just to get her to work. 6 miles each way and she takes the bus home each day at a cost of approx €25 per week.

We pay rent of €700 per month how much of that is deductible against salary I have really no understanding. Do we only count her contribution towards the rent or the total rent. I am applying do we have to apply as a couple. I am on long term meds that would cost approx €190, or €144 per month if registered for the drug payment scheme. From what I am reading a person may only earn €184 before being cut off. I am receiving BTEA of €188. Not sure if I can claim the medical card on the basis of my BTEA alone. The prospect of losing my medical card is putting me under enormous emotional stress. I have started rationing my medicine in fear of lose the card altogether. I think the worst case scenario is qualifying for the GP only card, which is pretty useless really when the GP writes 3 months of scripts for me at a time. This would mean the state paying for 4 GP visits at €50 a pop and me fessing up €144pm x12 = €1728 per annum. They already cut my Jobseeker during the summer for 4 months to €101.10. That has left us and me in particular really short of money.

I have looked on the state website and they have very good example for the over 55 age group of who qualifies but I am finding information on the allowance for the under 55's next to useless. If I stop taking my medication which I will be forced to do if I am cut off I am at serious risk of having seizures.

If anyone has any real life example of their income and whether they qualified or not it would be a great help. The other alternative I am looking at is moving out from the shared accomodation.

Keogh08

From my understanding you are entitled to retain your secondary benfits such as the medical card when you transfer over to BTEA. In the most recent budget they did remove the entitlement for those that return to work (you were previously allowed to keep the medical card for 3yrs if you took up employment).

cals

Hi,
Was just reading your post. Are your seizures caused by epilepsy. If so (if you don't get your full medical card) you could apply for the Long term illness scheme (LTI) which means you don't pay for any medication required for certain long term illness (epilepsy is one of these).