Posted on 12/01/2012 5:34:52 PM PST by Hojczyk
Americans are very generous to people with disabilities. Since passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990, millions of public and private dollars have been spent on curb cuts, bus lifts, and special elevators.
The idea has been to enable people with disabilities to live and work with the same ease as others as they make their way forward in life. I feel sure the large majority of Americans are pleased that we are doing this.
But there is another federal program for people with disabilities that has had an unhappier effect. This is the disability-insurance (DI) program, which is part of Social Security.
The idea is to provide income for those whose health makes them unable to work. For many years, it was a small and inexpensive program that few people or politicians paid much attention to.
In his recent book, A Nation of Takers: America’s Entitlement Epidemic, my American Enterprise Institute colleague Nicholas Eberstadt has shown how DI has grown in recent years.
In 1960, some 455,000 workers were receiving disability payments. In 2011, the number was 8,600,000. In 1960, the percentage of the economically active population aged 18 to 64 years old receiving disability benefits was 0.65 percent. In 2010, it was 5.6 percent.
“It is exceptionally difficult — for all practical purposes, impossible,” writes Eberstadt, “for a medical professional to disprove a patient’s claim that he or she is suffering from sad feelings or back pain.”
In 2011, 15 percent of disability recipients were in their 30s or early 40s. Concludes Eberstadt, “Collecting disability is an increasingly important profession in America these days.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
Kinda in the same place myself. I have a bad back, bad shoulders, and lost the use of my vocal chords over a year ago. But even when my back trouble had me in a wheelchair I still was turned down. I’m trying to get help from the Department of Vocational Rehabilitation right now, but I don’t hold out much hope for that.
One of my doctors told me the story of a patient of his who had been in a car accident and was paralyzed, he could pretty much only move his eyes and eyebrows. It took 2 years of appeals before he got approved for disability.
Which is why I get doubly steamed when I see people doing nothing but partying and getting high while drawing SSI.
In a far corner of the women’s room in the interstate service area was a pull-down shelf for changing a baby. Instructions were in Braille. It baffles me how the disabled Mom ever got to that location. If she was accompanied, you’d think the helper could pull down the shelf, too.
I have a disabled grandson who uses a wheelchair, and appreciate accessibility, but some things do puzzle me.
At my last apartment complex in Biloxi, MS they were cheek-to-jowl and all younger than me. Of course, they belonged to a different ethnic group than I do.
Have you tried one of those lawyers?
My wife is a pharmacy tech for Rite Aide and is furious about the moochers who get disability while the truly needy get denied. Some days she is so upset that I can’t stand to be around her.
The moochers are destroying this country faster than the providers can provide. I would guess we have less than 10 years before we have a total break down of our society altogether.
Get a lawyer and claim a drug dependency, you can get it. You probably won’t get it on any grounds without a lawyer
the other day ....front page...they featured this slob who is 34 and can't work and is on disability for degenerative disc disease....she stated that she's used the "fund" of 11 years now....and she just had another baby 11 months ago!
I'VE GOT DEGENERATIVE DISC DISEASE and why am I still working like a dog in a hospital?.....
wth is going on!
I'm going to be particularly uncharitable this year except to my family or friends that I know need help....the rest of this organized thievery can just bite my arse.
Can you say “Cloward-Piven”?
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