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.
RE: 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.
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SOURCE:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-94-128/html/GAOREPORTS-HEHS-94-128.htm
EXCERPT:
The number of addicts receiving disability benefits has grown
substantially during the last 5 years—from fewer than 100,000 to about
250,000 today. The annual cost of providing benefits to addicts is about
$1.4 billion. The vast majority of addicts receiving disability
benefits are either not in treatment or their treatment status is
unknown. About 100,000 addicts have not been assigned a third-party or
representative payee to manage their benefits. Consequently, the Social
Security Administration (SSA) has no guarantee that these persons are
not using their benefit checks to buy drugs or alcohol. Even in cases
when payees have been assigned, their control over benefit payments is
questionable; most of these payees are friends or relatives. Because
addicts can abuse, threaten, and pressure their payees, GAO believes
that organizations would make better payees for addicts than friends or
relatives. SSA needs to ensure that all disability benefit recipients
are in treatment and that all addicts have a third-party or
representative payee. Also, Congress needs to consider expanding the
treatment requirement to all addicts and restructuring the program to
improve the payoff from treatment.
when I lived in the midwest our church had a ministry doing various things such as transportation to doctors, for senior citizens in an apartment building a block away. It was a HUD program. The residents were great, played cards in the activity room , were free to roam around. etc. This was in the 80’s. At one point alcoholics began moving in and the residents became afraid. They locked themselves in their apartments, especially at night. The activity room always smelled like alcohol. The reason the alcoholics moved in is because HUD labeled them as eligible for benefits. Also, I knew of a family with several kids, one six years old was a terror. His parents never disciplined him. But some doctor diagnosed him with attention deficit disorder and put him on drugs. They applied for SS Disability and got it.