What, so Cello and MsJacquie don't count...and neither does cajungirl???
While I don't mind people getting WLS paid for by Medicare or Medicaid, I do think they need to be HONEST with themselves about how to pay for protein and esp vitamins! But even when challenged, they get defensive about it...
Dh and I are both on SSDI. In fact, Medicare paid for my surgery but before we got surgery, we sat down and figured out if we COULD afford it. When we sat down with previous tax years, looking at what we paid OUT of pocket...not what was paid by the insurance company and our out of pocket was over 12,000 a year. So on that 12K a year, could we swap the copays for vitamins, protein, etc...YES.
At that time, we were still covered as secondary insurance by dh's employer. ONCE we dropped to just Medicare, my copays would have skyrocketed as Medicare does NOT think that type 2 diabetics NEED an insulin pump and insulin pumps are damned expensive (last one I got in 2007, the insurance company paid almost 7K for it)...and supplies are even worse but it gave me a chance to stay reasonably normal with blood sugars to avoid all the fall out from diabetes. And I had been on an insulin pump by then for almost 8 years. But Medicare would have insisted either I self pay for all that OR drop back to just insulin shots...it's like asking someone to give up their pancreas. That insulin pump WAS my pancreas...at least until I had the DS. Taking that thing off and putting it away was the best victory OF my DS.
I think the biggest factor in all this is the ability to ADVOCATE for yourself...don't be a sheeple.