Posted on 05/01/2013 6:13:04 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
It happens all the time. I head out to the nearest mall to work through my weekly honey-do list. After spending five minutes securing a parking spot, I walk to my destination. As I pass the handicapped parking spaces located a hop and a skip from the entrance — the spaces reserved for people in wheelchairs, or really old people with walkers, or other genuinely handicapped people — I notice a car pull into one. It’s one of those Seinfeld moments, and I turn into George Costanza. Almost.
The first thing I do is stop and take a look at the license plate. And then I wait. And it happens like clockwork. Perfectly healthy human beings with handicapped-parking decals spring out of their cars and happily stroll right by me.
Of course they’re happy — they get the best parking spaces, and suffer no consequences.
What happens next separates me from George Costanza: I don’t say anything. I don’t challenge the miscreant pretending to be handicapped who steals a space from people who are. And that’s part of the problem: People like me don’t confront people like them. Our government doesn’t put up much of a fight either, as you’ll learn shortly. Indeed, it actually gives them incentives for this behavior. And the grifters who pretend to be disabled get away with stealing our collective compassion one parking space at a time. And one wheelchair at a time.
With regularity, the Wall Street Journal recently reported, airport employees witness people who falsely claim to be handicapped when they arrive at the airport. Having successfully cut to the front of the long security lines, these parasites jump out of their chairs the moment they’re through the screening process and race to their gates, bags in tow. Airport security sardonically calls these occurrences “airport miracles,” because the body scanners seem to possess mysterious healing powers.
How big is the problem? One airport investigated the matter and concluded that at least 15 percent of wheelchair requests are phonies designed to game the system. Some think that estimate is low.
We can thank the 1986 Air Carrier Access Act for requiring airlines to provide free wheelchair service to anyone who wants it. The legislation was carelessly written, so that there’s no documentation required to get the service.
Our compassion isn’t just being stolen one wheelchair and one parking space at a time. It’s being stolen one check at a time. Perhaps millions at a time, if we had the courage to challenge the explosion of disability checks being sent to Americans who are not handicapped.
How bad is it? Enrollment in the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program has hit an all-time high of 8.9 million, up from 455,000 in 1960 and 7.4 million when President Obama took office in January 2009. Since 2009, the number of people on disability has increased more than the number of people working.
All this has happened as medical advances have allowed more of us to stay on the job, and laws have been passed banning discrimination against the handicapped in workplaces.
But it turns out that once people get on the disability train, they rarely get off. In 2011, 650,000 people left the program, but 36 percent of those left because they had no choice — they died. Another 52 percent left because they moved to other programs. Only 6 percent returned to work, and only 3.6 percent went back to work because their medical condition had improved.
How did this happen? For starters, we allowed it. It has become socially acceptable in some parts of America to not work when you actually could, and instead to collect a check from the taxpayers. And in some parts of America, this is utterly commonplace. In Hale County, Ala., according to a recent NPR series, nearly one in four working-age adults is on disability. And on the day their checks arrive, NPR noted, “banks stay open late, Main Street fills up with cars, and anybody looking to unload an old TV or armchair has a yard sale.”
Things have got to be pretty bad if NPR is doing a series on the issue.
NPR’s Chana Joffe-Walt talked to a retired judge in Hale Country, Sonny Ryan, who described a conversation he had had with a man who appeared to be healthy, but who collected disability.
“Just out of curiosity, what is your disability?” the judge asked.
“I have high blood pressure,” the man said.
“So do I,” the judge said. “What else?”
“I have diabetes.”
“So do I.”
And that summarizes the problem.
In 1984, Congress changed the definition of the word disability. The old definition, it decided, was too narrow; it included pretty much only things that could kill you. Things that were easy to test for, like cancer and heart disease. The new law was more vague, with harder-to-diagnose problems like back pain and depression added to the list.
When Congress creates a vague law with big dollars attached, it doesn’t take long for a crafty lawyer to seize the opportunity. And seize it Charles Binder did. When he started working in the disability field in 1979, Binder represented fewer than 50 disability clients. Last year, his firm — Binder & Binder — represented more than 30,000 people.
#page#You may know the firm, because you can’t get through 15 minutes of daytime TV without seeing its ads. Binder is the guy in a cowboy hat grinning from ear to ear who makes this promise to viewers: “We’ll deal with the government. You have enough to worry about.”
Binder isn’t just advertising his services in those commercials; he’s selling a government program many people didn’t know existed. Now they do. And Binder’s firm is the beneficiary. It raked in $68.7 million in fees last year, the biggest player in the disability industrial complex.
That’s why he’s smiling so broadly in those ads. Other law firms are following his lead. In 2010, a $1.4 billion slice of the disability-awards pie was paid as fees to disability lawyers by the Social Security Administration, up from $425 million in 2001.
Who says there aren’t pockets of growth in our stalled economy? The NPR report didn’t end there. Binder and his clients, it turns out, have advantages when they get before a federal appeals judge. “You might imagine a courtroom where on one side there’s the claimant and on the other side there’s a government attorney who is saying, ‘We need to protect the public interest and your client is not sufficiently deserving,’” MIT economist David Autor told NPR. “Actually, it doesn’t work like that. There is no government lawyer on the other side of the room.”
You heard that right. There is no lawyer representing the taxpayers, despite the fact that the average claim costs us over $300,000. The number is that high because in addition to the annual $13,000 people get when they win their appeals, they soon qualify for Medicare. Which means taxpayers are not only paying people not to work for the rest of their lives, we’re picking up the tab for their health care, too.
Regrettably, the Social Security Administration didn’t design disability hearings to be adversarial, according to the NPR report. Instead, judges are there to represent the government, while they are simultaneously charged with giving a fair and impartial hearing to the claimants. Judge Randy Frye, a North Carolina administrative-law judge, told NPR he often finds himself glancing to the other side of the courtroom hoping to hear a challenge from the government. But what he sees is an empty chair. From the sound of things, Frye is a judge doing his best in a bad situation.
Some judges are less scrupulous. Take Judge David Daugherty — please. Until he was forced into retirement two years ago, Daugherty processed more cases than all but three other judges in America. But he didn’t seem interested in defending taxpayers. According to the 2011 Wall Street Journal report that led the Social Security Administration to place him on leave, Daugherty decided 1,284 cases in 2010, and awarded benefits in all but four. For the first six months of 2011, he approved payments in every one of his 729 decisions. How does that compare with the other 1,500 judges administering the program? The chance of winning in their courtrooms is 60 percent.
“Some of these judges act like it’s their own damn money we’re giving away,” Daugherty told a fellow judge in Huntington, W.Va., according to the Journal.
He’s right. It isn’t the judge’s money. And it isn’t the lawyer’s money, either. It’s our money.
Regrettably, we now have a system in place that advantages one side — trial lawyers — over another — taxpayers — and provides claimants enough wiggle room to allow them to scam the system with little effort. They simply have to hire a lawyer — and wait. For people with poor job prospects and little training, it might just be enough to induce them to get on the dole for the rest of their lives.
What are the costs to taxpayers? SSDI hit a record $124 billion in benefits in 2010. And according to a CBO report in 2011, Medicare costs for SSDI recipients added up to $80 billion. And we taxpayers don’t lawyer up on these disability appeals?
So what can we do about this perfect storm of factors leading America down the path to becoming Disability Nation? Here’s an idea: Identify all the unemployed recent college graduates across the country, and have them follow around all the people collecting disability, and see how many are doing things like fishing. Or hunting. Or doing off-the-books work. And pay the graduates a bounty for each scammer they out.
In addition to making some extra money and saving taxpayers even more, those young graduates will learn just how corrosive a well-intentioned federal program can become. They’ll learn that people respond to incentives, and if you make not working pay about as much as working, and throw in lifetime medical benefits, you’ll get some bad outcomes. They’ll learn that because of those incentives — and the work of trial lawyers — many able-bodied citizens who should be working and contributing to our society are instead stealing from it.
But don’t hold your breath. Because the experience just might turn a lot of recent graduates fresh out of their liberal indoctrination camps — or as Dennis Prager likes to call them, liberal seminaries — into conservatives.
— Lee Habeeb is the vice president of content at Salem Radio Network, which syndicates Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt. He lives in Oxford, Miss., with his wife, Valerie, and daughter, Reagan.
I've seen that a lot, too. And other people sit there with the motor running, I guess so they can flee if they see a Polic car.
“”we accept Medicare only for people over 65””
Who is eligible for Medicare BEFORE 65?
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People with disabilities, SSDI.
So many people are unhappy, and so many people just have pathetic lives that they have to lash out at some marginalized group to vent their hate and bitterness. Who better than the disabled. Its not like they’re going to check anybody’s medical charts before they spew their bile. Save yourself some grief and stop trying to educate these cretins.
thank you....I needed that.
Yes I realize that the Pizza hut is closed at 6 am, but for crying out loud they are going to the GYM to WORK OUT!
My wife and I have a handicap parking placard on our van. I can walk but she can’t. She hasn’t don so in the past 28 years and baring Divine intervention here on this earth she won’t walk another step. Generally when paralyzes hits due to spinal cord issues the first use regained in the six-eight months to follow determine about 90% of the recovery of use of limbs. Many persons don’t know that.
True we do have better medical knowledge than in 1960. But many persons are also surviving illnesses and accidents today that most did not in 1960. Twenty Eight years ago the spinal/stroke rehab center my wife spent three months in was about 20 rooms in a hospital. Today it is an entire floor. When she suddenly could not walk or even move her arms and hands the doctors were at a loss. Our city had yet to get a MRI at any of the hospitals. 18 months later came the diagnoses after one was installed. During that time her hand and arm function were somewhat restored. But she is a quad. Before that she was a Certified Nursing Assistant working in a nursing home. Her 4’10” 90 pound body would left grown men.
About nine years after that I was hit with a mystery disorder that they could not diagnose. I could walk OK though. But I developed a severe overreaction to certain sounds and visual events. The reaction I learned four years later is seizures. I have one of the more common diagnoses likely seen in disability cases called General Anxiety Disorder. I am non phobic, I don’t have panic attacks, and no traumatic event caused it. It was some issues I had since birth that due to my body aging became more acute to finally the point of disability. BTW I tried several times to return to work. The last time I did it left me unable to do anything but answer yes and no questions for two days. I lost my ability to concentrate as well.
It was the Social Security Disability examiners who just finally flat out told me I could no longer work. Before that I was working about 50 plus hours a week and being a full time caregiver to my wife at home. Thankfully I still can manage to do that. I’ve been on disability for 18 years and not one doctor has even hinted I could ever work again.
Now about two years after my wife went quad they did place her in a retraining program. Their idea of rehabilitation and retraining was to be a telemarketer in a boiler room operation. It would have also meant loss of all medical coverage and we had already been bankrupt from her hospital bills when she got canceled three months into her six month hospital stay.
I have a cousin who has a handicap parking placard. He can walk but not far. He has CHF and it can’t be fixed. He’s outlived his estimated time left by about two years. It took him nearly two years and a lawyer to get disability and that was about 3-4 years ago. It took me an appeal the best I remember and about nine months. My wife was even turned down first time. Our total SSDI income is $1500 a month. From that $1500 a significant portion goes toward her needed Asthma medications {she is on Medicare A-B-D and Medicaid. We don’t qualify for SSI and as for Food Stamps? LOL $42 a month.
Now I know some persons do draw a lot more. We don’t. My sister draws more $5000 a month more than us combined but her deceased husband was an engineer and made good money. Sis is disabled with Dementia caused by several previous strokes among other things. She‘s 60. My point is things happen to persons they don’t ask for. If I had a magic wand my wife would walk, Sis would have her mind back, and I’d be back at work. But that’s not reality. However for the Bean Counters thinking everyone is getting ripped off here is something to consider. My wife needs skilled care. A nursing home when I had to retire 18 years ago was about $&% a day just for room and board not counting other things. $75 X 365 is $27, 375 a year. Our combined income is $18K a year. Which is cheaper?
Which came first the chicken or the egg? Meaning which may have happened first the disability limiting ability to exercise and burn off fat or the fat itself? I've packed on pounds the last few years. I tried walking. I ended up making my knees worse. Hard to explain I was born Club Footed, became flat footed at work, and have walked off balance all my life due to Inner Ear & sensory issues I was born with. That makes exercising difficult and by doctors orders restricted. I do wear corrective insoles and now I use a cane for balance to walk. Yep I often grab a store scooter too but we shop real late at night because I can't handle crowd noises.
Two Shrinks I met Damn near killed my wife because to two did not know what Serotonin Syndrome was. Can you guess the uneducated one who figured it out for them was? Why was she seeing a Shrink? For PTSD where a stupid dentist nearly killed her with the wrong pain medication that put her into a Coma. I kid you not.
I took my wife in for an emergency appointment with her shrink because she was very agiated and very confused. This had never been her mental state. Dr FeelGood said well lets up your Zoloft and see me in a month. By the time we got home she was pyschotic as in halucinating and we went to the ER. There she went unconscious. Now that should tell any doctor Hey something very wrong is happening this is not a mental issue once she was unconscious. Not one of six doctors did a PDR on her Meds. Having a patient off all meds for 48 hours but Ativan and the symptoms clearing should tell them something. They should have really giotten a clue when Dr Feelgood walks in and says Up the Zoloft and in one hour of injestion she was out of it. Nope all of that went right over their professionally trained heads.
Darn Shrinks refusing to think outside their Pharmaceutical box darn near killed me as well. How many of your male patients you prescribe Paxil or antidepressants too do you tell them watch for bladder blockage? That can lead to Dysreflexia. That can cause death.
I do want to say this though. People Please when you see a van parked in a handicapped spaced where there is an extra marked off area don't pull into that marked off place and park beside the vans passanger side door. It is marked so the van lift can be lowered. The person using the wheelchair lift might also be the driver and they are at your mercy waiting till you come out so they can get in their vehicle.
I've seen one worse by ones who should know better. Walmarts started marking off Van Parking Areas where you pull in long ways and can exit the van straight into the parking lot. They are clearly marked such. Nine out of ten times a person with a placard will pull into the space headed in like a normal space and then another park beside them.
Wow! Someone on FreeRepublic disparaging my profession. That’s a new one! How very original.
Seriously after they Finally did a CT scan at day 5 it showed a bleeder in the brain and she left the hospital with partial amnesia. The Xanax she was taking with the Zoloft and Trazodone was likely why it didn't kill her.
I had a rough time with them because I have a form of GAD that antidepressants can not be used to treat. I'm strictly auditory and visual sensory triggered. I go into myoclonic seizures at certain sounds and visual stimulation.. Needless to say I did not need my sensory uptake inhibited LOL. I fought and won that one after I figured out just what the heck was really wrong with me about two years into it. I did finally find a doctor who knew how to correctly treat it and would listen. A half MG of Xanax four times a day and no antideprrssants. I also found out what Paxil could do to a mans bladder. My medical training came in handy on that one.
Here’s my take:
Where I live, it costs $86 to start up a single person LLC. $86. Probably not a huge percentage of someone’s monthly disability take to get them started.
Anyone who can sit/lie around typing/dictating on Free Republic has a demonstrated skill.
Anyone with a demonstrated skill, and something to offer others through that skill, can parlay that into a business, especially in the Information Age, when millions are doing exactly that, and many are doing it quite successfully, and doing it despite “disabilities.”
Those with such a skill, but without anything to offer others through the use of that skill, can develop something to offer others that people would be willing to pay for.
Those who cannot (or will not bother to) develop something others would value enough to pay for, should be of such character that family, friends, neighbors and charities would consider them worthwhile enough to come to their aid.
But what we have now is a huge number of people with demonstrated skills - ie the ability to type/dictate, surf the web, render astute opinions, etc - who are supported by strangers whose money is forced from them at the point of a gun by various government agencies.
I’m not in favor of such a system, and it strikes me as odd that anyone on FR would be. I have zero respect for people who try to justify this system in their own case on a conservative site, in complete sentences, with heart-rending examples, when they could use their skills to earn a living by starting a web site with its own forums, or start a blog about their plight, or write and publish for sale a book or the books of others about such things, or become a freelance writer and earn a living that way.
Sheesh.
I do what I can do and I have a lot on my plate I deal with besides what I mentioned. I have to concentrate to cook so I don't burn the darn house down. If I get distracted I might not return to what I was doing. As for typing? I do hunt and peck.
Now I do know someone who was born with severe limitations a full quad. She has a college degree. She also works. The amount of money it has taken to get her to that point is about six times or more what it cost others because everything had to be adapted. She can only move her fingers so someone must go with her to assist her and drive her. Her job? Interviewing persons for government work programs. What may sound good on paper often is either not practical or economically wise.
But hey you want to save Medicaid and Medicare money? I have some ideas and the math works. Medicare/Medicaid will pay up to $100 a day to room and board a patient in a nursing home. Yet if a family wants to care for Grandpa or Granny or even a sibling at home they will receive very limited help. I know what I'm talking about I've been a caregiver 28 years. In 28 years we've had about a dozen home health visits. Today because an issue that popped up our doctor has sent them out again. He knows when I tell him I can't get a wound to heal up he knows it's serious. A nursing home gets money for care of patients but family doing for self gets very limited help. Ever hear of the powerful nursing home lobby? I beleieve in family caring for family.
Not everyone can be a care giver either. But many of our elderly and disabled end up in nursing homes because family can not afford to cut one of two of their incomes. I've worked full time and been a caregiver at home. Part of that is what made my condition hit earlier. With this disorder the brain can only juggle X number of task and issues at one time. Your a Shrink or so you say you are and so you should know this stuff.
I have one more I am also helping coordinate care for and thats my sister. She's in a secured unit for Dementia but I'm the one who checks on her and first contact etc. Last year I also did my dads Hospice care at home.
You sit and you judge others persons disabilities doctor and yet you have not met them? How professional is that? All person I know who are disabled would rather not be so. There are abusers in any system.
There are also realities the article skipped including medical technology advances that can save a persons life but the person may be left severely disabled as a result.
Oh and hey Doc you sure stay up late and have time to post at work LOL.
Has nobody caught the real point of the article that there is a lot of disability (not just handicapped parking permit) FRAUD going on today?
How, miraculously, because people can’t find jobs they decide they can’t work at all? How they go straight from unemployment to disability? How they prefer a government check to work because it’s easier and often more lucrative?
People work with back pain, depression, cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, blind, deaf, etc...etc....etc... ALL THE TIME! If they have the character to do so.
Disability has it’s place but it’s generally become a huge scam and racket. And this article doesn’t even mention SSI payments to “disabled” children of around $700/month for maladies such as ADHD. Parents with multiple “disabled” children live off the kids’ cash. Add food stamps, Section 8, Medicaid, Obama Fones, etc... it’s much preferable to flipping burgers or cleaning toilets. Which is why we have to get illegals to “do the jobs American’s won’t do”
A study once showed most cities have more handicapped parking than handicapped stickers issues.
Typical beauracracy at work.
It’s also laziness and the idea of entitlement. The same goes for fire lanes; people park in them to run in and get a pizza or pick up dry cleaning.
I always call the police and fire marshal on them and give thier license plate numbers.
Once I saw an idiot park in a fire lane and an actual fire broke out and the fire truck guys just rammed his car and cops arrested him! I was laughing so hard.
I have a messed up ankle from a car accident and my walking is limited (mostly by distance and time) and I was told I could qualify for a handicap sticker.
Thank you, but no I said.
Look up Central Auditory Processing Disorders. It can be both auditory and Optic. The thing is there is no Pharmaceutical money to be made as Ritalin usually will not help but rather can make it worse nor will a CAPD diagnoses mean special pay for schools or parents. An Audiologist should be among the first steps taken & Shrink the last resort for suspected ADD ADHD.
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