there are many receiving disability income who are not entitled to it because of crooked doctors who sign off on the application. There once was a need to be be examined by SS doctor as well as outside doctor. I understand that only one signature is needed now and other than a typical governmental wait, it is a slam dunk. We need a program to weed out the non-qualified and prosecute these fraudulent doctors.
Also, number of so-called disabilities need to be limited. For instances alcoholics, children on these attention deficit drugs, etc., are all eligible.
This program is out of control.
I have not checked recently but the last time I read the rules on disability from the social security website it clearly said that drug or alcohol addiction was an automatic disqualifier. I have had people tell me years ago that the quickest way to get disability was to claim drug addiction but the law said exactly the opposite.
I can’t speak for the last five years but a few years ago some people were being denied benefits in my area even though they had multiple conditions which the social security administration lists as “automatic qualifiers”. My wife was one, the administrative court judge simply ruled that her doctors and I mean multiple doctors were “not credible.” It took twelve years of appeals to get approved and then she only got back pay for five years. It used to be very difficult to get approval in this area for disability. Doctors would refuse to certify someone as ready to resume work so they would apply for disability and social security would then turn them down. They could not get a normal job because companies didn’t want them on their insurance rolls with multiple chronic conditions. I understand that things may be looser under Obama but it has not always been easy to get approval by any means.
Some people used to get social security disability only because they had private disability insurance. I had a cousin who died at 59 after a high paid career as a welder for a utility company. He went to the company doctor for his annual checkup at age 50 and the doctor told him he had worked his last day. He was placed on disability and was astounded at the amount of his check from the company’s disability insurance and equally astounded when the insurance company applied on his behalf for social security disability and got approval rapidly. They did that because their policy said they would pay a certain amount MINUS any benefits fom social security. Had he been an average Joe with no other coverage he might well have died before gaining approval for disability.
SSDI is a racket. Everybody gets on it and they’re all able bodied:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2012/04/autor_on_disabi.html
It’s a slim sliver of people that really, really need it.
No work, no money - that should be the system.