When husband was approved for SSDI two years before his death (having a terminal illness is sort of a gauranteed approval, by the way) all the 'medicare' stuff came to him automatically. We did not go with medicare due to the costs and the like and due to the fact that my employee ins. picked up the stuff SSDI and medicare didn't cover.
Drugwise, it can be a bad scene. SSDI and regular medicare do not cover drugs. You have to go with some sort of 'part B' provider. It was in part the 25K per year for husband's medications that cost me our house.
I am not sure how it works for arthritis though I should be as I am facing multiple joint replacements in my future. I do know that medicAID as is done for folks on welfare has gotten really stickly about arthritis as involves overweight of any kind, past history and the like. One sort of has to prove that one hasn't brought one's problems on oneself.
