Posted on 07/18/2013 4:37:17 PM PDT by Kid Shelleen
SNIP-- But in recent years, the number of workers receiving disability checks has shot upwards at an alarming rate. Nationally, the number of disability beneficiaries rose by 39 percent between 2003 and 2011. In Pennsylvania, the rate climbed by 50 percent during the same period. More than 300,000 Pennsylvanians now collect a monthly social security disability check. The recent rise in disability payments is also counterintuitive. In a day and age when medical advances mean people are living longer and healthier lives than ever before, shouldn’t there be fewer disabled workers? DeHaven says it is because Congress has expanded eligibility to the point that Social Security disability has been turned into “a back-door welfare program”
(Excerpt) Read more at philly.com ...
True, and those firms that boast they will do everything including the application are ripping off their truly disabled clients. About half of all applicants (ie. those with real disabilities) are approved without any further legal action. When they are approved, the person gets back pay from the date they applied. Those firms take 30% of that money for filling out an application. OTOH I know an honest disability lawyer (yes there are some) who won't do that. He tells clients to apply and then see him only if they are turned down.
I figured out what was going on after my wife worked there a few months. We were both appalled, but you can’t turn your nose up at any job these days. Eventually the woman lawyer who owned the firm got caught up in her own hubris and got disbarred. Took my wife almost a year to find another job.
“The easy way is for the judges to stamp their approval for disability — that way they get better approval ratings.”
Social Security judges are an independent agency (Office of Disability Adjudication and Review). They are not subject to performance reviews by Social Security, nor are they under any pressure to rule one way or another.
Its back door unemployment. Folks who exhausted their unemployment were almost automaticly signed up as disabled in some areas.
IIRC the stories of a couple years ago.
Those who need it ...
Boy, ain’t that the truth. I work with a 64-year-old gal whose hip is just about bone-on-bone, but a long-planned hip replacement surgery keeps getting put on hold because of heart problems. In the meantime she tries to keep working. She should get disability.
42-year-old wife of a co-worker was turned down after suffering a heart attack and needing open heart surgery.
On the other hand, another one of our neighbors has been on disability for years for “back trouble.” He seems to be living a pretty normal life.
I don’t understand who qualifies and who does not.
Some are scam artists ...some are desperate 50 year olds who’ve exhausted every avenue to try and find a job in Obama’s economy. It’s game the system or starve. Hunger and desperation will do that to anyone.
I know many people are actually disabled when they apply and those are the ones that get through the system the first try. The ones requiring lawyers to get them through are the iffy ones.
Most stupid question of the decade. Gonna be hard to top that.
That it was welfare has been obvious from the get-go. That they called it SS Disability would be prosecutable fraud in any private enterprise. It is functionally criminal fraud by Congress, but they made themselves immune from prosecution.
Pretty slick, eh?
Tens of millions of permanent voters!
Such a deal!
Finally, any suggestion that it be eliminated, or removed from Social Security, and moved to a clearly welfare-named program, is met with the mortal political scream that You can't touch Social Security!
And every senile geezer on the continent, unaware that he's being "had" again joins in the hysterical chorus.
Can you say, We've been Swived --- again?
Every time I think of how many people of a certain subculture bought a cane, visited a doctor well-known in certain circles, and have "won" a permanent disability check for life, having worked perhaps a total of two years their entire life in 40 temporary jobs just does nasty things to my blood pressure.
I often wonder how "fraud" was eliminated from the legal dictionary, from the social conscience, and from the working taxpayer obligation consciousness.
And, "At this point, what difference does it make?"
The magic pixie dust money fairy incantation.
Nothing is impossible for demagogic dreamers --- working with other people's money.
No one starves in America even if they aren’t “gaming the system”.
There are churches, food pantries and even though we don’t like it, food stamps that are more than fair “game” in the present system.
No one needs to file a questionable or fraudulent disability claim.
The system’s gonna crash one day, hard, and then you’ll see the starvation. We need a complete overhaul and bring back personal and familial responsibility.
OK.
The second most stupid statement of the decade.
To compare anything the government conjures up, call it insurance, and compare it to the traditional concept of commercial insurance, where the size of the premiums are set proportional to the risk, and pre-existing conditions are NEVER covered (for those in Rio Linda, can't collect on a house fire if the premium is paid AFTER the fire.)
That comparison is like saying Trayvon is as smart as Einstein, because they are both called homo sapiens...
That it is called "insurance" is a sick joke, that only an arrogant criminal government can pull off; and only a moron would actually believe with a straight face!
Where’s the “like” button?
Sorry wrong website :-)
Good to know. Thanks.
Do you know where one can find a list of qualifying conditions for disability used by these judges?
I work with someone whose elementary school age son gets government disability for ADHD.
Is sodomy “back door sex”?
So, if I understand your statement correctly, am I to assume that you will never apply for Social Security benefits when you reach retirement age?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.