From an
Op Ed in the Baltimore Sun:
The government in Britain recently did something interesting.
It asked everyone receiving an "incapacity benefit" -- a disability
program slowly being phased out under new reforms -- to submit to a
medical test to confirm they were too disabled to work. A third of
recipients (878,000 people) didn't even bother and dropped out of the
program rather than be examined. Of those tested, more than half (55
percent) were found fit for work, and a quarter were found fit for some
work. ...
In 1960, 134 Americans were working for every officially recognized
disabled worker. Five decades later that ratio fell to roughly 16 to 1.
Some defenders of the status quo say these numbers can be explained
by the entry of women into the U.S. workforce, the aging of baby boomers
and the short-term spike in need that came with the recession.
No doubt those are significant factors. But not nearly so significant
as to explain why the number of people on disability has been doubling
every 15 years (while the average age of recipients has gone down) or
why such a huge proportion of claim injuries can't be corroborated by a
doctor. ...
There are those who are quick to argue that this is all bogus,
there's nothing amiss with the disability system that greater funding
and a better economy won't fix. Maybe they're right. One way to find out
would be to ask every recipient to get a thorough examination, just as
they did in Britain. Maybe the results here in the United States would
be interesting too.
Wow! Doing medical re-examinations of Social Security disability recipients! Who would ever have thought this would be a good idea? Actually, the Social Security Administration would like to do these on a regular basis and keeps asking for the money it needs to do the exams -- as well as enough money to answer its phones and prevent lines outside its offices and so forth. Yes, the medical exams save money but Congress still must appropriate enough money to do the exams themselves and Congress hasn't been willing to do that. So, there we are. Don't point fingers at the Left on this issue. Point fingers at the Right.
4 comments:
Do you know how many Continuing Disability Reviews SSA sends out that people don't respond to? Too bad we can't just "drop them from the program". There'd be so many lawsuits it would be crazy. Not to mention when we do stop the benefits because the medical evidence shows improvement, they file an appeal an elect to keep getting the checks anyway! Great program we have here!
Congress appropriates plenty of money for CDRs. The backlog of CDRs is the fault of SSA upper management which believes its role is to hand out benefits, not to make the best effort to identify the truly disabled.
Congress can appropriate all the money they want. The bottom line is CDR's are processed (for the most part) by DDS examiners. You can't significantly increase the number of CDR's without adversely affecting initial claims unless you hire lots more examiners. You can't fault SSA management for choosing initial claims over CDR's when there is a limited number of exmainers.
Comparing 1960 when the definition of disability was "long continued and indefinite" to today with "has lasted or expected to last at least twelve months" is particularly stupid. Add in that in 1960, the requirement that you had to be 50 to receive disability benefits was changed. Anyone actually receiving benefits in 1960 would had had to be 50 years old. (Born before 1911. That would certainly reduce the numbers on disability since it excluded nearly every Veteran of WWII. I also believe the insured status requirements were stricter then as well.
Whoever wrote that OP Ed is an idiot
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