Posted on 01/02/2011 11:36:02 PM PST by Angelus
The statement "One in 19 Americans today get SSDI or SSI. That's one in 19 Americans (who) are disabled." Sen. Tom Coburn, Dec. 1, 2010, in a meeting of the Simpson-Bowles deficit commission.
At a meeting of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform — the Simpson-Bowles commission tasked with finding a solution to deficits — one panel member, Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., cited disability payments as an example of government spending "out of control."
You might want to read up more on Epilepsy. Not all seizures are what most persons recognize as being such or are even visable to others is what I'm saying.
I didn't even know what I have is considered a form of it till about a year ago when I saw it classified as being such. I drive every day but I have what is called Myoclonic seizures which cause very violent spasms in my shoulder blades and neck but not in my arms or hands so it allows me to drive for right now. A trip through a Walmart for example is enough to trigger them. So is TV in some cases.
I can have as many as several a minute on a bad day 1-2 on a good one.
Epileptic seizures are physically and mentally exhausting for a lot of people. If you didn't see me in the seizure state {BTW the seizures only last a couple of seconds} you'd see me as being healthy except I walk with a cane now due to balance issues and arthritis. You likely would not even call my seizres epeltic.
As for getting a doctor to do something expiermental? Most insurance companies balk including Medicare HMO's.
Getting on SSDI is not as difficult as you think.
I have a close family member who has fabricated a case of fibromyalgia and an anxiety disorder.
Believe me, I am very close to this person and she has no symptoms of fibromyalgia and maybe a mild case at best of anxiety.
She got her high priced psyc doctor to help her with the paper work and hired an attorney as well.
It took a few years but her lies worked. I remember her first check from SSDI was for over 60,000 dollars....no joke.
She now makes about $800 and something a month.
Believe me she can work. What she is doing is a total scam and we taxpayers are paying for her to sit at home and watch movies.’
Did I mention she just bought a brand new Ford today? I pay an enormous amount a year in fed taxes to pay for her lies but I can’t afford a new car.
It makes me sick.
I know there are people who are truly disabled....my brother was in a very bad car accident which left him with severe brain damage. He couldn’t speak, walk, use his hands, nothing. It took him 10 years going through the motions and denials until a judge finally took one look at him and granted him the disability.
In my estimation at least 50 to 75 percent of the people receiving disability benefits from SS are full of baloney and gaming the system.
Including my family member.
SSI and SSDI are two highly different critters all together. The standards for SSI are low. You don't have to be disabled just poor. SSI is welfare.
Social Security Disability Insurance has a much higher qualification standard and burden of proof. It sometimes takes years to get it and most give up or die first. SSI is immediate. The senator was not smart in connecting them together because they aren't.
social security disability is no piece of cake. there are people whom collect it whom are incapable of full - time employment. SSDI and SSI are not welfare programs.
How many people know that there is a program within the Social Security Administration that is called Ticket to Work? There are people with disabilities whom are striving to move from Social Security Disability to employment. The economic times have made it a little more difficult. It is an all volunteer program, whereby a person with a disability voluntarily submits the ticket to work for employment as designated on the Ticket to work. yet there are limits to the program.
If you have never lived with a disability do not say the people with disabilities do not want to be employed or whatever else you wish to say.
I live with a disability that I gained in the service to this country. I went on after returning back to this country to get a bachelors degree, and masters degree and soon I am going for my doctoral degree.
I hate it when people say that there are people whom say everyone on disability feels they are entitled to it. That is BS.
Maybe my body is all screwed up, so on and so forth, but I still have a mind that works. Sure I use Dragon Natuarally speaking to enter information on a computer, use a wheelcahir and crutches to get around. I drive a car with hand controls. I modified a ford 9n tractor to be able to care of snow. I use a John Deere zero turn lawn mower to cut grass. .
Being a senator and a congressman is a welfare program the SOBs do very little for the money that is wasted on the idiots in DC whom do nothing. An enlisted soldier makes 19,000 a year. What the hell does a congress critter or senator make in excess of 170,000 a year. Many of them refuse to listen to their constituents.
Coburn is an ass. Lets take away his 186,000 a year salary and have him live on 19,000 a year, and out of he pay for his medical bennefuts and other daily living necessities. Take the welfare away from the politicians.
You might want to read my post #22 on this thread.
I have personally watched someone very close to me drum up some vague symptoms and whined about them to a psychiatrist.
Hired a lawyer and started the ball in motion for acceptance into the SSDI program.
It took two years of passing paperwork back and forth but was deemed too disabled to work and got on the dole.
Since it took her 2 years from the initial filing to the acceptance the SS admin. paid her all the back money they “owed” her from the 2 year lapse.
It was unbelievable to watch how easy it was to receive. Oh and of course since she has two children, they too get SS checks to help take care of them as well.
This has got to stop. There is no way 1 in 19 Americans are too disabled to work. I have seen it first hand.
This is pure crap and evertime I make out that big check to the IRS on April 15 I just want to scream.
I am tired of paying for others lies. It has to end.
I'm one eye functional with good vision in neither and one has severe astigmatism my dominant eye. It is a disorder you can't see. I was born club footed both feet and am now as well flat footed in both feet. My legs and feet are twisted from years of walking off balance and arthritis set in.
Now then. I could walk up to you tomorrow and talk to you for an hour and you likely would not detect anything unless I had a seizure or have my cane.
It was a Social Security Medical Examiner that was the first to tell me I'd never be able to work again. I think she knew what she was seeing but at that time it had no name. G.A.D. worked on paper and so it was. I was later diagnosed with PTDS as well which I am now free of.
I know several persons with Fibro. They have their good days and bad ones. Not enough is known about it to really treat it. 16 years ago nothing was known about what I have. Because of that I was given the wrong medication treatment for nearly two years. Most of what I know about what I have I acquired on my own searches.
When I lost all my immuntity I had to Mold a few years back I found out what Asthma was like. Allergic reactions and Asthma can be about the same. I took my share of Predisone for a couple of years till the immunity therapy began working for me. BTW I don't trust any shrinks.
...and don't forget all their big buck$ meds. My kid is a pharmacist and said it would make you cry to see all the medicaid & AIDS drugs for $1. Most throw them in the garbage and the drugstore keeps calling them to refill. Truly sickening.
Also, I unfortunately have some relatives that have milked the disability wagon for life. 3 out of 4 siblings have "disability issues" in their 30-40's. Some of these clowns work under the table.
Disability for alcohol and drug addictions {unless drug addiction was the direct result of legitiimate medical treatment} should be ended. It is supposed to be limited to two years lifetime I think. But what you are seeing is really a different problem. A court system that refuses to deal harshly with parents especially mothers. I know about that system as well and about went to jail taking on a bad mom. The courts and Childrens protective services or whatever they are in each state is of the opinion all mothers with anykind of abuse or criminal record are to be considered victims.
See post 17. I know what I'm talking about on the ADD ADHD issue. If/When enouh of the kids get tested for C.A.P.D. you'll begin to see the ADD ADHD rates bottom. C.A.P.D. can only be diagnosed either by an Audiologist or Speech Pathologist trained in the testing. CAPD is cheap to treat and requires no meds as such and very little classroom modification.
Way out of a shrinks league though. Their understanding stopped in the early 1970's. Vestibular Research is making headway. Vestibular means related to the components of the auditory processing system.
Why don’t we call them “reparations”? How many of those one-in-nineteen are black? I know! (groan) I’m racist!
I worked in a public school. There were two full time counselors on staff and they spent a large part of their time processing SSI claims for ADD and ADHD students. It was a severely abused process. Made us sick to see these moms, who didn't work at all, come in with paperwork for 3 or 4 kids. They were always "very anxious" to start getting those SSI checks!
You assume that we are all heartless creeps with no sympathy for the disadvantaged! Wrong! The truly disabled deserve help. But, we have no sympathy for those who refuse to help themselves or those who contrive to get benefits!
When I turned sixty- five, I went to the Social Security office to get my Medicare application form and was amazed at the huge crowd of young, fat women there with several small children in tow. They were there filing for “disability”....too fat to work, I suppose.
If you hand out “free” money, they will come.
You're assuming he's not working in the cash economy.
I know a woman in Missouri who collects SSI. Her boyfriend? Also collects SSI. It’s for ‘mental issues’ but there is nothing wrong with them. It’s sickening.
I have a friend who has MS. He needs it.
Why does the American Taxpayer have to fund the result of LIFESTYLE CHOICES, when the obvious outcome is destructive? (Other than to buy votes of certain constituencies).
I personally know people who have done this for more than 20 years of taxpayer-funded supplemental income.
For those inner-city welfare families, there seems to be an endless supply of Obama Money coming to fund their crack habits, un-wed baby-production, etc., and each child affords them additional opportunity to claim SSDI/more food stamps/more aid for families, etc.
This is a way of life in a culture that lives SOLELY off the taxpayer-funded handouts.
The monthly amount isn't 'hugh', about $550.00 max benefit. But it adds up a tidy sum in the end.
Others qualify for SSI too. Like some who are awaiting or fighting the repeated denials for Disability. However once you get approved for Disability, any SSI monies received are deducted from your payment(s).
But giving 'FREE' money to Junkies and Winos is nucking futs. I don't know when that started but that should end pdq. And how some are collecting BOTH SSI and Disabilty (SSDI) beats the sheet out of me.
We had a man in our Sunday School class who needed a heart transplant, couldn’t work even if he wanted to. Took him 3 tries to get on SSDI. Was on it 2 years before he could find a ‘match’. A year after the transplant when he was stable, he was back to work and off SSDI.
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.