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."
I know, I’m one of them. Fibromyalgia, Osteo A in both hands, 5 disc, Osteo Porosis in right hand, Hypo-Thyroid, Peripheral Neuropathy in legs and feet, now I’m getting frequent bouts of tendinitis related to the Fibromyalgia as is the Peripheral Neuropathy. I look healthy, the pain is there 24/7/365, the fatigue and short term memory fog is too.
And there is no arthritis drug made that I can take if I want to have a working gastro-intestinal tract. Fibro meds blur what little vision I have left, as well as cause more brain fog, or cause my hands and feet to swell causing MORE pain. No win situation.
Takes me over half the day to do what use to take 2 hours.
BTW Neither me nor my wife draw SSI. We draw Social Security Disability Insurance. That is not the same thing as SSI.
Yeouch that’s a lot on your plate I know about most of them. Good Luck.
Oh My Sides LOL! What do you think controls ones balance and coordination? The Vestibular System which includes portions of the brain. This means the Sensory Processing system. . Every ailment I have except for arthritis is directly related to it. Think for a moment single eye functional, partial deafness, Menieres disease, poor coordination, Myoclonic sensory triggered seizures, and a misdiagnoses of ADD ADHD all point to the same general area. It isn't one disorder I have it is several all related to the same part of the body the sensory processing portion. This portion determines what whe brain hears and sees and how it is to be interputed.
There is a huge difference between being able to care for yourself in your home enviroment and actually being able to work.
If I had typical G.A.D. then antidepressants would help me. They are like poison to me and can trigger an adverse reaction because of my neurological damage.
What I have learned about my disorders much of it I had to seek out on my own. It started with a book called Phobia Free I found by accident. Phobia Free was written by a doctor nearly two decades ahead of his time who had linked some anxiety disorder to hidden and undetected Vestibular Disorders. Without that book I would not be typing right now I would be an Agoraphobic.
I'm not scared of my attacks like most anxiety patients are. I know and understand the cause of them and adjust my enviroment accordingly to limit those triggers. But I can not stop all attacks as it is also a form of Epilepsy. That too would be a logical direct connection to sensory processing. My seizures didn't start till I was 34. That is why I finally had to go on disability. Medication can only do so much.
Your post says it all.
I wrote about facts of a SSDI case I am very close to.
I know for a fact that this person is able to work. It was and is a total case of gaming the “I want mine” system we have set up.
Now if you want to debate fibromyalgia, that is another story. It is one of those auto-immune disorders that have vague, “could be anything” symptoms. Easy disorder to claim you have the symptoms for, but are next to impossible to prove or disprove.
I don't know if the disorder is real or not. (I have my doubts) But I do believe that most people (women) are exaggerating their symptoms and/or are flat out lying. Maybe for sympathy or attention or excuse not to work, or in this case for getting on the govt. dole.
We all have our aches and pains and problems as we age. Hell, my father worked his adult life after fighting in two wars with an extremely painful leg disability and near complete deafness from working with missiles.
He worked because that is what you did.
He died of emphysema. I believe he stopped working about 2 months before dying.
My father is my hero.
I have little to no respect for people who can work but won't and take money out of my pocket to afford the luxury.
Our Country is broke. We cannot afford to fund this baloney anymore.
The truly disabled should receive help. The majority of these SSDI recipients should be re-reviewed and probably taken off the dole.
Amen to that
I've been reviewed at least twice myself to continue SSDI. My wife I think once but after 25 years she's not going to walk. Her hand function is good enough for her to do a lot of things for herself eventually but not good enough to work. If I could work I would but I would now have to hire a sitter for her. No family can't do it for me. My sibling is in bad shape and has to have 24/7 constant monitoring. Strokes do that to a person. Yea that person is fixing to go on SSDI. Sibling didn't need it till wage earning spouse passed a few weeks back.
Freepers I can likely say in all honesty except for the poster who is a wounded vet I have likely been around and seen far more disabilities and disabled persons than anyone on this thread. I went to school with them. I don't mean one kid out of the school disabled I mean the entire school student body was there due to disabilities. Some were obvious some were not. It was a regional school in Oak Ridge Tennessee now closed due to mainstreaming. I'm glad it was there. Without it I would have missed out on a lot. It taught me some important lessons that stuck with me. Persons with disabilities no matter how mild or severe are usually just trying to make it in life. They hold no grudges and they have their dreams and wishes.
That school would prepare me for a life in my distant future in loving a disabled spouse. It would prepare me for military service so well that the doctors missed everything. It gave me enough coordination where I could up till I retired climb a ladder safely to do my work.
Years later I would spend my evenings at a local rehab hospital with my wife being trained for being her caregiver. When she came home I was ready. Some want to look down on me that's fine. Lets see you be a caregiver for 25 years. You better hope disability never hits you. Most marriages where a spouse becomes disabled during the marriage do not last. The healthy spouse can not except the disabled ones limitations. We were dating when this happened to her and married after the fact. No regrets.
There's been many things we could have gotten including home health nurse visits once a week we turned down. We've asked for nothing except for what we need to get by. Any of you no matter your position in life are likely one catastrophic illness or injury from SSDI.
Are there abusers? Likely so. Self inflicted like addicts should be tossed off. As well a catastrophic illness will send many to bankruptcy court. Went there once 23 years ago. When mine hit it required no hospitalization for me. My wife though with hers spent six months in the hospital at which her insurance was canceled 30 days after her last sick day.
Be thankful for your health if you have it.
And yours say a lot about you. None of it anything you should be proud of either.
I think you belong to DU-not Free Republic.
I work in the medical field- and your chart with your self “diagnosis” would give a red flag to anyone.
I am sick of seeing people who truly need help crowded out by people who are scamming the system.
Since no one could find out what was wrong with you ( as you previously said- you diagnosed yourself because physicians could not figure out what was wrong with you)- you got disability by a psych diagnosis.
Not even a good psych diagnosis- like schizophrenia and bipolar , but “anxiety’.
That is a crock of BS.
You can report me, and I could get banned, I don’t care.
I am just trying to make it to retirement- but the takers are greater than the producers. It is getting more difficult to save anymore.
Why should I support you?
My brother- with severe mental and physical disability due to his brain cells being fried post delivery- works full time at McDonalds. He works alongside Downs Syndrome kids.
You state that you are a conservative on your page.
However, a conservative supports small government, low spending.
I don’t see that from you.
This is the problem with our government.
You can call me noncaring.
But I can tell Shiite from Shinola.
Be gone.
I will add one more thing.
Everyone has been so polite to you on this thread.
But, I see this country going down the crapper due to all the massive spending.
It is time we stopped being polite, and tell it like it is.
16 years ago much of this stuff wasn't in the books. If you are in fact in a medical field you might know that if the disagnoses is not correct for G.A.D. and it is neurological damage involved instead causing the issues then SSRI therapy can cause Serotonin Syndrome?
Ever actually seen Serotonin Syndrome? Ever Diagnose it when five doctors and two shrinks could not nor give you answers? I did. My wife had it. I figured it out when after a week of hell for my wife when I typed in Trazodone +Zoloft +adverse reactions. Yea a simple PDR they failed to do. Well who'd a thunk it. She too has anxiety and depression to boot. She is a C-5 c-6 incomplete quad. It is due to Transverse Myleitus likely Post Polio related due to limb measurements taken by a PT. My wife at the time was a CNA. She's 4'10 and lifted 200 pound plus patients.
I had to learn everything from diagnosing Dysreflexia to changing Folleys to doing skilled skin treatments. We don't get home health.
So what is one of the first things a quad looses besides movement ability? It's Inner Ear function. That's what a tilt table is for.
I didn't learn about my disorders over night. I learned it over a period of years. The only clues I had to go on was poor coordination and some messed up responses as a very young kid like stopping up my ears at visually scares and screaming at loud noises. When I was about 8 I went to an eye doctor who caught on that my eyes could not function both at the same time. That was in the mid 1960's. I was used to it. I still have to tell the eye doctors I see. I really messes with depth perception too.
The seizure part is what really had the doctors stumped. That was the part that did not fit text book G.A.D. I didn't even know it was called Myoclonic seizures till about 5 years or so ago. Evidently they are rare in adults but more common in children. Only three things can stop them for me. Either getting out of the offending sensory trigger, popping a .5mg Xanax under the tounge sometimes twice in a 30 minute time frame if we're out somewhere, or believe it or not if I'm home playing my six string.
Some of this is also in my service record like being placed on the hearing conservation program due to hearing loss. I was medically waivered out of the boiler rooms on the ship due to Inner Ear difficulities. These were very large boilers and you stayed there for hours on end. I could monitor smaller commercial ones that did not require me being in the space at all times.
Do you even know how shrinks work? I do. You see them 5-15 minutes every three months and they write scripts. I fired 5 till I found one who would stop the SSRI nonsense. I was having an upset stomach and headache from them as well as becoming agiated. What do you think that was leading too? When one finally put me on .5Mg Xanax 4 times a day life got better. It stops the seizures usaully. My wife was put on it 24 years ago by 4 doctors who saw her anxiety was triggering symptoms simular to a heart attack. She's fine with them. I've taken it 16 years no problems with the problems to be concerned with. But I don't drink.
What I have learned and told my doctors who then did their own look ups has helped them to keep from giving me meds that can whack me out. The only ones who didn't believe me was shrinks imagine that LOL.
All I know, is that I work in the medical field and showed your posts to people who work in medicine.
They are laughing their heads off.
Good night.
Yea I had my wifes in house doctor at the level one hospital tell me Serotonin Syndrome was rubbish too when I showed him the paper. He quickly backed off when he read the authors name. Then he went into a CMA mode and found the bleeder caused by it. It was their professor's paper on Serotonin Syndrome. Because all the doctors involved failed to do a PDR of the meds she still has partial amnesia 9 years later. Go ahead ping any of FR's posting doctors you wish to say I'm wrong on this stuff. A hand full of Freepers know about some of it as I told them about it years ago. One Freeper is actually on this thread :>}
If I was in all this for money me and my wife would be very rich right now. Believe it or not all we did was write letters to the two hospitals involved Chief of Staff saying it better never happen to anyone else.
But lets see if I can keep my stories straight shall we :>} Try post 23 in this link. Tennessee Freeping Help Needed
I suspect that some taxpayers might call it a "squeezebox" as they wrap their hands around her scamming neck.
By the way, I agree with your assessment on anxiety disorders.
“neurosis, not a psychosis” is correct.
I believe many of us suffer with some degree of anxiety.
I also agree with “I especially suspect people who have a laundry list of ailments to support their disability status.”
When people start building their disabled case on symptom after symptom after symptom.....well it becomes questionable.
It is like throwing darts at a wall full of balloons. The more balloons, the more probability you will hit something that works.
Even if our Country could afford this scam, (we can't of course), we need to put an end to it.
We owe it to every honest, hard working American who pays taxes. We owe it to every honest, hard working American who goes to work with a hurt back, or bad headache or whatever......
This scam is just all sorts of wrong.
I agree with FReeper “kaila”.
Why do I have to pay you for your hardships? I am sorry for your woes, but to be blunt...we all have them.
I have sympathy “cards” I could play. I’m a vet, I have anxiety, I do have grand mal seizures, hell my knee hurts most days.
So what. I go to the doctor, I try to take care of myself, and my husband loves and supports me. That is what most everyone does. They don’t expect others to carry the load.
I got into debt taking on the care of my elderly mother and disabled brother. I didn’t ask the govt. for help. I just took it on.
The more symptoms and woes you tack on to your posts aren’t going to get you any more sympathy.
There are disabled people who need help. That is obvious. But for you to deny that many people are gaming the system for money is ridiculous.
This thread started with the stat of “1 of 19 Americans are on some kind of disability”. That statistic was shocking to me and made me mad. You accepted it and expect conservative FReepers to be OK with it as well.
I will never be OK with it. I pay a crap load of my money to fund this sham. I want it to stop.
At V.A. the audiologist is more skilled at nerve damage and sensory processing issues. The first hearing test I had early last year was accurate though. The audiologist tested me and saw me seizing at certain tones. These hearing aids should have better filtering.
Outside of my SSDI check and farly low yearly medical cost covered by Medicare I pay the rest. Most of the things I have to have Medicare doesn't cover. Hearing Aids, Corrective shoes, etc. It was just this past year I finally went through V.A. for some of it.
I do not believe 1 in 19 are on SSDI. SSI? Maybe but not SSDI. The reason is the standard of qualification and burden of proof for SSDI is much greater. I can remember I was placed on SSI after I retired and when my SSDI was approved the SSI I had recieved up till then was taken from my first check which was about six months or so SSDI back pay.
Now let me ask you something. If you and your husband had a car wreck in the morning and it inflicted catrostrophic damage what would you do? What would the ones you help do? You'd be at the SS office or you would starve and loose your home unless you made enough to purchase catriostrophic illness insurance. BTW most of those type policies have lifetime caps.
I have to laugh at the rants in here. Strain at a gnat swallow a camel. The cost of SSDI is nothing compared to the cost of taxpayer supported nursing homes which no one bats an eye at. I worked in them. Many of the patients were there simply because family could not be bothered. Some needed to be due to advanced diseases or nearing death most did not. You haven't heard the outrage till you try and cut off the nursing home industry. They have a very powerful DC lobby.
Those places get established as NPO's with a board of directors. The B.O.D. members get outragous salaries for simply attending meetings once a month. Medicare is their cash cow followed by private insurance co-pays. Do the math. If a disabled person is home especially a blue color disabled they will draw SSDI far below the cost of a nursing home. Lets see if any members of the house or senate call for cutting that.
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.