a Subsidy question

Each state determines the amount of a subsidy and generally they will not exceed what the Foster Parent rate of pay would be for the same child. Most states offer Medical coverage or Medicade on special needs adopted children until the age of 18....you may also add the child to your own health policy which would become the primary and use the state coverage to pick up the over flow (co-payments, dedcutables etc...) GENERALLY a subsidy cannot be requested to meet the costs of anything that would fall under the catagory of medical or educational services offered by the public school system.... For example our daughter has serious alergies and the state insurance excludes alergies from coverage therefore the subsidy did cover the additional costs for allegry medications... Most learning disabilities can be met with one or more programs offered by the public school system therefore educational services are very difficult to get subsidies for until or unless the public schools are no longer able to offer any service--which is rare and likely will never happen. Our daughter was also identified as "Socially at Risk" and we asked for subsidy to cover the costs of different activities to help her gain skills socially.... dance classes, girl scouts and other children's groups. Most of the time you will RENEW your subsidy agreement with the state annually and can pitch any new things at them and see if it will be accepted. This year for example our 6 year old was RAGING and in my effort to flee from her I fell over the baby gate and herniated two disks in my back---the state adoption assistnce program (subsidy) did cover the cost of some child care and housekeeping during my recovery from surgery. Also the TAX Credit of $10,000 plus is a direct credit to families who adopt a special needs child and you do not have to have any out of pocket costs a special needs child automatically qualifies the family to take the entire credit... if you cannot use the whole credit in one year you may use it for as many as five years until the total has been used... You get the tax credit the year the adoption finalizes.... Last year our family did not pay any taxes due to this credit....we got every penny of our federal tax money back. Some states also offer a smaller credit in our state it was $1,500.00. These are per child in our case we adopted two siblings. Our children are pretty special needs and so far in a year and a half the costs we have had to pay out of pocket have been minimal. We recieve about $750.00 for both children which is just about what our state would pay a foster family...