[MissAmericanPie]

Here is a little tale to burn you up. I work with a pretty young girl who should be out enjoying her youth. Instead she is taking care of her mother who suffered a stroke, is confined to a wheel chair, yet cannot draw disability because she retired over ten years ago which means she has lost her Social Security policy.

The way it was explained to the victim is that Social Security is like an insurance policy and if you have not paid into it for ten years you have lost your policy even though the woman had paid into the system for thirty years.

She is not allowed to draw her husbands either. All this means that her entire care is the responsibility of a sweet daughter working three jobs to barely make ends meet.
No lawyer will take the case so the daughter is going to have to represent her mother in court.

Yet anyone from India to Mexico can bring their parents here for six months sign them up for SSI and every other freebie and send them back to their home countries where their payments will be mailed to them.

Make it over the border and you are assured Welfare, WIC, and free Medical. For the chump citizens of this nation I call this taxation without representation. Slowly from smoking ordinances to City Code enforcement designed to drive the elderly from their homes we are turning into a totalitarian state.

Our founders were well aware that Democracy is the most perfect form of government for stealing away the rights of the individual via the oppression of the majority, that is why we were intended to be a Democratic Republic consisting of States rights being supreme and easier to control by the average man. That is why they were wise enough to give us the hated Electoral College to keep such oppression from taking hold nationally.

Now our state representatives have given over their power to the central government in D.C. for the sake of commonality which has been proven a bad deal. I guess if these little personal tragedies that individual Americans are going through do not effect us personally it's easier to look the other way.

[sheana]

Another horror story.....I had a friend with cirrohis of the liver, from hepatitis (needle prick while working in a hospital). She applied for Social Security Disability and was denied. She went to a lawyer to get the case appealed and was told by said lawyer "you will probably die before this makes it to a judge to decide the appeal". Apparently the waiting list to get before a judge on appeal is about 1 1/2 yrs.
She died last January.
Guess the lawyer was right.

[Cold Heat]

The way it was explained to the victim is that Social Security is like an insurance policy and if you have not paid into it for ten years you have lost your policy even though the woman had paid into the system for thirty years.

That's not exactly true.

Disability goes to those who are of working age, but cannot work for some qualified physical or sometime mental reason. It is not easy to get as some decry in all cases, and takes a average time of a year or more of appeals to get it if you don't have a recent working history, which is why lawyers get involved.

What is happening to her is that she was not working at all prior to her claim and this indicates that she is not a qualified disabled worker. You must be a worker to get SSI. She has to go through a long appeal process, and may or may not be successful, but I doubt it.. SSI is a temporary measure to pay a person while he/she is recovering from some disability.

It was never designed for permanent disability. What she needs to do is try for early retirement on her social security account because of a disability, and if she paid in very little, her account is not of much value.

I would suggest that she probably can be helped by Medicaid and the State run disability program. It is separate from social security but in some states is run differently. Since she apparently has no dependents, the process takes time. Had she been taking care of someone with her wages, it would have been easy.

Social security is not welfare. The State has this responsibility and is aided by the fed. Her Social security account is still there, but she can't access it until she is 65 and six months, IIRC. She should have been informed as to how much she has paid in and she has something coming back, but a non worker for ten years shows that she does not qualify for the temporary SSI payments. She can appeal for early retirement however, and she has to prove her disability and the like. But forget about SSI..You can't reasonably think she could qualify for it which is why lawyers won't take the case.

You could consult a social security lawyer who deals with this stuff, but they get a chunk of the money if it is ever paid out, and they are not necessary to the process. She won't have much to begin with.

I would keep trying. But do check with the State, as far as Medicaid and forget SSI. It was not designed for this situation.