1 in 20 Americans now collect disability payments and that number will continue to rise because Congress will not reform a welfare program in which "disability" can mean just about anything.
BUMP!
I really hope this has legs and Coburn can get some reforms here. This SS is a total welfare program full of all types of cheats.
Seriously!! I hope this issue gets legs!!!! Been people gaming the system since the 70s!
This is a great subject. Do you all know that drug addicts and so called alcoholics get disability if they are in a rehab?
Let's take a highly functional or incomplete quadriplegic for example. Able to somewhat use their hands but unable to do things like empty a urinary drainage bag etc. Next is the problem about being up in a wheelchair for the work day. One pressure sore can mean weeks if not months in bed. This is but a few examples. There are also non visable disabilities like CHF and other disorders s well. Just because a person can walk does not mean they can function in a work place at gainfull employment.
Despite what the senator says S.S. disability is in fact not that easy to obtain. The first filing is denied almost automatically even with ample proof from many doctors including the SS agencies contracted examiners. The first appeal with overwhelming proof might get you on disability. Odds are likely about 1 in 3. The rest will spend years going through lawyers, hearings, more appeals, and in the meantime no income except possibly SSI. BTW getting SSDI does not mean one qualifies for SSI. If you made a dollar above minimum wage before applying for disability chances are once you receive SSDI you will have to pay back the SSI from your first check which is back pay usually.
I know a few disabled persons. I know of no one on it fraudulently. There are much easier state and federal programs to access with a much lower burden of proof for assistance than disability.
For many lower income workers this will be their sole income if becoming disabled. Some who had better paying jobs or were under a great corporate benefits package may have additional coverage that some may mistake as SSDI. The standards for obtaining payment would vary from policy to policy.
The first thing a person usually looses when becoming disabled is their healthcare insurance. Generally within 60 days most employers stop paying. That means you are placed on COBRA which to a disabled person who can not work is just not a realistic option.
I disagree with the senators assessment on this issue. I would also bet that most disabled were likely blue collar low to lower middle class workers. It would make sense because they would likely be doing more physically demanding jobs. My last job out of about a dozen person I worked with over 5 years 4 of them died during that time and one went on disability. That one was me. Before I went to work there the foreman dropped dead in his office.
Your SSDI payment depends on what you paid in. Every ones payment varies due to what they paid in. Does anyone in here think they can live on $618 a month or maybe $813? I know persons who draw about that much. IOW it is by no means a get rich program for most. It is forced medical retirement. I know another person who draws $1500 a month.
There is a lot of waste and fraud in government no doubt but SSDI is about the strictest program there is.
Anyway, later a person came out through a door and yelled my name. I followed her and she took me to a desk where a blind computer operator was sitting - the actual SSA officer. The 'helper' took my paperwork and proceeded to sequence and speak each entry so the blind computer operator could enter it.
By the way, the blind computer operator effed it up and I got a letter in the mail later and I had to go back and do it all over again....
social security disability is no piece of cake. there are people whom collect it whom are incapable of full - time employment. SSDI and SSI are not welfare programs.
How many people know that there is a program within the Social Security Administration that is called Ticket to Work? There are people with disabilities whom are striving to move from Social Security Disability to employment. The economic times have made it a little more difficult. It is an all volunteer program, whereby a person with a disability voluntarily submits the ticket to work for employment as designated on the Ticket to work. yet there are limits to the program.
If you have never lived with a disability do not say the people with disabilities do not want to be employed or whatever else you wish to say.
I live with a disability that I gained in the service to this country. I went on after returning back to this country to get a bachelors degree, and masters degree and soon I am going for my doctoral degree.
I hate it when people say that there are people whom say everyone on disability feels they are entitled to it. That is BS.
Maybe my body is all screwed up, so on and so forth, but I still have a mind that works. Sure I use Dragon Natuarally speaking to enter information on a computer, use a wheelcahir and crutches to get around. I drive a car with hand controls. I modified a ford 9n tractor to be able to care of snow. I use a John Deere zero turn lawn mower to cut grass. .
Being a senator and a congressman is a welfare program the SOBs do very little for the money that is wasted on the idiots in DC whom do nothing. An enlisted soldier makes 19,000 a year. What the hell does a congress critter or senator make in excess of 170,000 a year. Many of them refuse to listen to their constituents.
Coburn is an ass. Lets take away his 186,000 a year salary and have him live on 19,000 a year, and out of he pay for his medical bennefuts and other daily living necessities. Take the welfare away from the politicians.
Why don’t we call them “reparations”? How many of those one-in-nineteen are black? I know! (groan) I’m racist!
When I turned sixty- five, I went to the Social Security office to get my Medicare application form and was amazed at the huge crowd of young, fat women there with several small children in tow. They were there filing for “disability”....too fat to work, I suppose.
If you hand out “free” money, they will come.
I know a woman in Missouri who collects SSI. Her boyfriend? Also collects SSI. It’s for ‘mental issues’ but there is nothing wrong with them. It’s sickening.
I have a friend who has MS. He needs it.
I personally know people who have done this for more than 20 years of taxpayer-funded supplemental income.
For those inner-city welfare families, there seems to be an endless supply of Obama Money coming to fund their crack habits, un-wed baby-production, etc., and each child affords them additional opportunity to claim SSDI/more food stamps/more aid for families, etc.
This is a way of life in a culture that lives SOLELY off the taxpayer-funded handouts.
The monthly amount isn't 'hugh', about $550.00 max benefit. But it adds up a tidy sum in the end.
Others qualify for SSI too. Like some who are awaiting or fighting the repeated denials for Disability. However once you get approved for Disability, any SSI monies received are deducted from your payment(s).
But giving 'FREE' money to Junkies and Winos is nucking futs. I don't know when that started but that should end pdq. And how some are collecting BOTH SSI and Disabilty (SSDI) beats the sheet out of me.
There are 2 adults less than 2 miles from me who are brother & sister. They are in their late 30’s or very early 40’s.
They each collect $800 a month in ‘Disability” payments-—and have been for a number of years.
Because they are TOO FAT!!!
They claim they are TOO FAT to be able to work!!!
Neither one will ever make any attempt to lose weight & actually get some skill sets & get a job—instead they continue to eat their way thru life on their $800 a month each from NObama.
They squat for free in the home of their mother & stepfather. The mother is just as much of a parasite. Another story......
A contrast? I started work when I was 15 on a payroll. Part time when in High School. I am now 71.
This is the 3rd consecutive year I am collecting a FROZEN Soc Sec amount of $1039.00 Prices on everything have & are going up.
Also, when I fist moved to where I live now, I hired a guy who lives on his sailboat at a nearby marina to mow my lawn on a regular basis. He had been fighting to get his lifetime disability for about 3 years (for falling off a ladder). He finally got it, along with a retroactive payment. He kept working mowing people's lawns, and spent most of his spare time sailing (solo) and boozing. He did however manage to finally drink himself to death.
The Boston Globe ran a great series on the SSDI scam. Had 2 democratic congressmen promising to bring it up this session.
ADD and ADHD now qualify for SSDI payments. One family was receiving $800 a month/child for ADHD “disability”
They call it SSI and SSDI but as far as I know the Social Security Administration only administers and pays out all these disability checks and crazy checks. But the money does not come from the Social Security Trust Fund that seniors have paid into and others are paying into. It comes from current USG operating budget
Can anyone verify this?
I know anecdotes don’t make the case, but I was first made aware of this scam when a local druggie was put on Social Security Disability - his mom worked for the agency. Coincidence?
An oldie ping...