It is possible to fake or trump up both mental illness and musculoskeletal disease; and it is possible as well to extend disability benefits well beyond the period that someone would need to get back to work.
Yet among adults of working age by far the two most empirically important disabling conditions in the US and in every other country in the world that can measure these things are mental illnesses and musculoskelatal disease. Together they account for more than half of all chronic illnesses through age 45, and thereafter they remain dominant even as heart and kidney diseases, cancer, and so forth begin to rise faster.
I am all in favor of putting stricter controls into these benefits and closer oversight. But it is a mistake that conservatives often make to call those with mental illnesses crazy, fakers, lazy, etc. It is a mistake to claim that those who have bipolar, schizophrenia, psychoses, etc are empirically insignificant, because in fact their numbers are huge and their conditions more than other conditions have ripple effects on loved ones, co-workers, etc. It is a mistake not to have compassion when compassion is so obviously needed and appreciated.
Please, just be careful in how you think and write about those who have these illnesses. Perhaps you might ask yourselves, would you write such things about people who are mentally retarded? Autistic? With dementia? Heart disease?
You are correct. There are true needs out there, people who absolutely have mental problems and need the help.
But there are also others who are getting a check while they sit at home and get high, play on the computer all day. The ones I met were in their late 30’s, early 40’s. Strong and healthy.
If that is happening nationwide, I hate to see that lifestyle become acceptable to so many of that generation...and their children too!